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Copyright K°. 

COHRIGHT DEPOSIT, 



OM MEMORY'S SHRIKE 



fcl I I SabeXW, Consort of > 

FROM 



MEMORY'S SHRINE 



THE REMINISCENCES OF 

CARMEN SYLVA 

(H.M. QUEEN ELISABETH OP ROUMANIA) 



Translated from the German, by Her Majesty's desire, 
by her former Secretary 

EDITH HOPKIRK 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




PHILADELPHIA & LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1911 



A* 
"tar 



Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Company 



Published March, 1911 



PRINTED BY J. B. LIPRINCOTT COMPANY 
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. 



©CI.A28G542 



CONTE15TS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction 9 

I. Clara Schumann 13 

II. Grandmamma 30 

III. Ernst Moritz Arndt 60 

IV. Bernats 69 

V. Two Old Retainers 85 

VI. Fanny Lavater 97 

VII. Bunsen 119 

VIII. Perthes 139 

IX. A Faith-Healer 151 

X. Mary Barnes 175 

XI. The Family Valette 181 

XII. Karl Sohn, the Portrait-Painter 192 

XIII. Weizchen 203 

XIV. A Group of Humble Friends 217 

XV. My Tutors 232 

XVI. Marie 243 

XVII. My Brother Otto 251 



ILLTJSTEATIONS 



PAGE 

Carmen Sylva Frontispiece 

Madame Schumann 16 

H. M. King Charles of Roumania 28 

Royal Palace at Bucarest 64 

A Queen at Her Loom 94 

H. M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania 140 

H. M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania 182 

H. M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania 218 

Prince Otto zu Wied 252 



FEOM 



MEMORY'S SHRINE 

INTRODUCTION 

It has been said by a well-known German novelist 
of our day in one of bis most recent works that as 
we approach our fiftieth year our hearts nearly 
always resemble a grave-yard, thronged with mem- 
ories, a far greater share of our affection belonging 
by that time to those who are already at rest be- 
neath the earth than may be claimed by those still 
left here to wander with us on its surface. This 
remark of Rosegger's is above all true of such of us 
as have been accustomed from our earliest youth to 
stand mourning beside new-made graves, and see 
our nearest and dearest prematurely carried off in 
Death's relentless grasp. 

It is in this cemetery of mine, sacred to the mem- 
ory of all whom I have loved and lost, that I would 
linger this day, holding commune as is my wont with 
my beloved dead ; but for once I would not that my 
pilgrimage were altogether a solitary one. As in 
thought I stand before each grave in turn, gazing 
with the spirit's eyes on the dear form so clearly 
recognisable under the flowers I have strewn above 
it, I would fain retrace for others than myself every 
line of the features I know so well, that all you to 

9 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



whom I speak may learn to know and love them also. 
Even the best are all too soon forgotten in this busy, 
restless world, but it may be that my words, coming 
from the depths of my heart, will strike a responsive 
chord in the hearts of those who read them, and 
kindling in their breasts a feeling like my own, will 
keep alive for a little space these figures I call back 
from the shadowy Past. My aim will be achieved 
if I can but convey to other souls something of the 
impression my own received from the noble and 
beautiful lives with whom I have come in contact, 
and which my pen will now strive with the utmost 
fidelity to portray. 

I am about, then, to throw open the sanctuary I 
have so long jealously guarded from the world — the 
private chapel within whose niches my Penates are 
enshrined. Those to whom I pay a constant tribute 
of love and gratitude were either the idols of my 
early youth or the friends of riper years. I shall 
try to show them as they appeared to me on earth, 
in every varying aspect, according to season and 
circumstance, and to the changes of my own mood 
and habits of thought during the different stages 
of my mental development. To my youthful 
enthusiasm many of them became types of perfec- 
tion, in whom I could discern no human weakness — 
to have known them was my pride and happiness. 
All that was best in myself I attributed to their 
influence, and their presence has never ceased to 
dwell with me since they have been removed to 
higher spheres. They, on whose lips I hung with 
such rapt attention, drinking in every word that fell 

10 



INTRODUCTION 



from them, very possibly paid but small heed to the 
silent, earnest-eyed child, nor guessed how fondly 
those lessons of wisdom and holiness were being 
treasured up in that little heart. For to none of us 
is it ever given to know the precise hour in which 
our own soul has spoken most clearly and forcibly 
to another soul, nor to fathom the full import of the 
message with which we are entrusted towards our 
brethren. We cast our bread upon the waters of 
life, not knowing its destination, and the seed we 
scatter with a lavish hand is borne in all directions 
by the winds to take root it may be in the soil we 
should have deemed least fit for culture. Children 
often observe more keenly and reflect more thought- 
fully than their elders would give them credit for. 
We need but look back each of us to our own child- 
hood, in order rightly to understand how deep and 
lasting are the impressions then received, and how 
they may colour the whole after-current of our lives. 
Now, as I recall those days, I feel myself, as it were, 
suddenly transported into the midst of an enchanted 
garden, among whose rare and luxuriant blossoms 
I would fain gather together the fairest specimens 
for a garland. But they spring up around me in 
such wild profusion, and their beauty is so radiant, 
their colours so rich, their fragrance so intense, that 
I am embarrassed in my choice, and only stretch 
out my hand timidly and hesitatingly towards them, 
fearing lest in plucking I should injure the least of 
these fairest works of Creation. Well, indeed, may 
I feel diffident as to my own skill in selecting and 
grouping them aright. 

11 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



Yet, though the skill be lacking, goodwill and 
sincerity I may at least claim to bring with me in 
full measure to my labour of love. It is no mixture 
of Fact and Fiction I would here compile, nothing 
but the simple, unadorned Truth, things I have my- 
self seen and heard. Not that I would have these 
pages resemble memoirs, in the ordinary sense of 
the word, for what are memoirs at the best but a 
superior sort of gossip — when they are not, that 
is to say, simply gossip of a despicable kind! No 
mysteries will be here unveiled, no scandalous 
secrets dragged to light. I do but propose to draw 
back the curtain from before the picture-gallery 
within whose sacred precincts I have until now 
allowed no other footsteps than my own to stray, so 
that all who will may render homage with me to the 
moral and intellectual value of the lives these por- 
traits strive to commemorate. 



CHAPTER I 



CLARA SCHUMANN 

It is but fitting and natural that I should open 
with this revered name the series of my reminis- 
cences, as my childish recollections hardly go fur- 
ther back than the date of the first time I heard 
her, when I was only eight years old, at my very first 
concert in Bonn. That was so great an event in 
my life, and I was so impatient for the evening to 
come, that I hardly know how I got through the 
whole day that preceded it. Seldom has any day 
since appeared so interminably long. Still, the 
evening did come at last, and I remember accom- 
panying my mother to the concert-room, into which 
she was wheeled in her invalid-chair, for, although 
still quite young, she had been for many years in 
ill-health and unable to walk. But whether I walked 
by her side, or how I got there, I no longer know, 
for I have only a sort of confused recollection of 
having been brought there without any effort on 
my own part, as though I had been borne thither 
on wings ! My first concert ! My heart still beats 
loud when I think of it. 

It was a big, crowded room we entered. But I 
did not see the people. I paid no attention to any- 
body. I saw nothing but the estrade on which the 
piano was placed. Our seats were so far to the 
right that, small as I was, I should not have seen the 
pianist at all had I not obtained my mother's per- 

13 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



mission to establish my diminutive person in the 
passage left between the two rows of seats, where I 
had a full view of the keyboard. I was all eyes, all 
ears, quivering from head to foot with intense ner- 
vous expectation. At last Madame Schumann came 
in, and, advancing swiftly to the instrument, sat 
down before it. She was dressed in black velvet, 
with a single deep-red rose stuck low behind one ear 
in her dark hair, which was very thick and inclined 
to curl, and which she wore plainly parted and flat 
to the head, instead of having it according to the 
fashion of those days twisted to stand out on each 
side of the face. What struck me at once was some- 
thing harmonious in her whole appearance; it 
always seemed to me afterwards as if her dress must 
have been crimson too, to match the rose in her hair. 
Her hands were small, firm and plump, the touch 
full, healthy and vigorous, almost of virile strength. 
I carried the rich, clear tones away with me, to ring 
in my ears for long afterwards. But that which 
went straight to my heart, and haunted me longer 
still, was the pathetic look in her eyes. 

Leaning a little forward, bending as it were over 
the keys, as if to be alone with her own music and 
the better to hear herself, apparently utterly obliv- 
ious of the rest of the world, the player kept her 
magnificent, melancholy eyes persistently cast down. 
But I could see those wonderful eyes, and her sad- 
ness impressed me so much that it almost spoilt my 
pleasure in the music, for I was wondering all the 
time how it could be that anyone who played so 
divinely could all the same look so unutterably sad. 

14 



CLARA SCHUMANN 



I did not then know her unhappy story; I had not 
heard how her husband had gone out of his mind, 
leaving her penniless, with a large family to provide 
for, and that it was, indeed, to provide her children's 
daily bread that she thus played in public. It did 
not occur to me that anyone could be poor who wore 
a velvet dress. Besides it was impossible to my 
childish mind to conceive that any artist could be 
poor. On the contrary, I looked upon them all as 
being fabulously rich, as having all the treasures of 
the universe at their disposal. Those beliefs were 
natural to my age, for in childhood Romance is Real- 
ity, and Reality a very poor sort of Romance ! Have 
we not been all of us the heroes of our own fairy- 
tales? — either Aladdin or Robinson Crusoe, and 
more often Crusoe on his island than Aladdin in 
the magic cave, since at that time of life the riches 
of this world appeal very feebly to our imagination. 

But for the pathetic expression of a pair of 
dreamy eyes my mind was sufficiently receptive, 
sorrow and heartache being already only too famil- 
iar to me. My mother, as I have mentioned, was 
at that time an invalid, my younger brother had 
been a sufferer from his birth, and my father was 
slowly dying of consumption. The daily spectacle 
of pain and illness may well open a child's eyes to 
the expression of suffering in other human faces. 
But as I was always a very reserved child, accus- 
tomed to keep all puzzling problems to myself and 
brood over them in silence, I asked no questions, and 
consequently learnt nothing about my new idol nor 
even suspected the existence of a domestic tragedy. 

15 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



Schumann's works were at that time a sealed book 
for me, with the exception of a few simple pieces, 
intended for children. And children's pieces were 
not what I cared about. I only wanted Beethoven ! 

After that I did not see her again for many years 
— till I was grown up, a girl of twenty, in St. Peters- 
burg. I was just recovering from an illness, and it 
was whilst I was still so weak that I could hardly 
stand, that I had the sudden news of my dear 
father's death. The blow was such an overwhelm- 
ing one, I felt at first as if everything in life were 
over for me, and that I should never take pleasure 
in anything again. And just then Mme. Schumann 
arrived with her daughter Marie. The Grand 
Duchess Helene, in whom so many artists had found 
a true friend and enlightened patroness, hastened 
to place rooms in her palace at the disposal of the 
celebrated pianist. So mother and daughter, to my 
unspeakable joy and consolation, took up their abode 
with us for seven weeks, and were lodged in the 
suite of apartments just above my own. Whenever 
she was going to practise, Mme. Schumann would 
send word to me, and then I would manage to drag 
myself upstairs, and let myself be propped up by 
cushions in a corner of the room, where I could 
listen undisturbed. It was as if I were being slowly 
awakened from a deathlike trance, and being brought 
back to an interest in life again by the strains of 
that exquisite music. Better still, my aunt very 
soon arranged for me to take some piano-lessons of 
this great artist, and these mark quite an epoch in 
my life. They were certainly quite exceptional les- 

16 



CLARA SCHUMANN 



sons in every way, altogether unlike everything else 
of that nature, for at first I was almost too feeble 
to hold my fingers on the keys. But my dear pro- 
fessor soon found something for me, to which my 
strength was just equal — Schumann's delicious 
4 ' Scenes of Childhood' ' — and from these we went on 
little by little to higher flights. But it was not alone 
for the progress in my music that these hours were 
of inestimable value ; I look back to them as having 
left their mark on the whole course of my life ever 
since, for I was roused from my own lethargy and 
despondency by learning the trials through which 
my new friend had passed. This noble-minded 
woman could, indeed, have hit upon no better lesson 
in fortitude than that which was contained in the 
simple story of her own youth, as calmly and un- 
affectedly she told her young companion of the catas- 
trophe which had wrecked her life. It was, indeed, 
a revelation to me, this glimpse into the workings of 
another soul, whose sufferings I had never even sus- 
pected. The simple words in which the tale was 
told wrung my heart more than any studied elo- 
quence could have done, and I blushed to think that 
I had dared to wrap myself up in my own sorrow, 
as if I were the only sufferer in the world. I learnt 
from her how much another had borne silently, un- 
complainingly, and I understood how duty may often 
call upon us to take up our burden and resume the 
daily struggle before our wounds are yet healed, 
instead of giving ourselves up to the luxury of 
grief. I will try, as far as I can, to give Clara 
Schumann's story in her own words, as she told 
2 17 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



it to me, in the long conversations we held in those 
unforgettable hours. She spoke of her childhood, 
for her troubles began early; her parents were 
separated, and the little girl never knew a really 
happy home. In spite of the slight deafness, with 
which she was troubled from her earliest years, her 
father insisted on having her trained as a musician, 
and she was prepared to make her appearance in 
public when she was only twelve years old. ' ' It was 
all very hard, ' ' she related, ' ' for I adored my mother, 
whom I hardly ever saw. I remember my father 
once taking me to Berlin to pay her a visit, and the 
way in which he flung the door open, with the words : 
4 Here, madam, I have brought your daughter to 
see you!' Yes, those were hard circumstances for 
me, and the more so, as he had married again, and 
my stepmother was anything but kindly disposed 
towards me." 

There was a pause, and her expression changed as 
she went on to tell of her love-idyl and early mar- 
riage. This was a dreamy look in her eyes, and an 
arch smile on her lips that made her face quite 
young again, while she spoke of those bygone days 
of short-lived happiness. 

"It was when I was only fourteen," she said, "that 
Eobert Schumann first became a visitor at our house. 
He was then just eighteen years of age, and very 
soon we two young people had fallen in love, and 
even become secretly engaged. Secretly, I need 
hardly say, so frightened was I of my father, who, 
for his part, had constantly announced that he had 
his own quite fixed plans for my future." 

18 



CLARA SCHUMANN 



Again she paused, and seemed for a moment 
plunged in memories of the past. I did not disturb 
her with questions, but waited for her to go on with 
her narrative, and it was with merriment once more 
rippling over her face that she related some of the 
more amusing scenes in the drama. 

4 'Four years later it had come to open war between 
my affianced husband and my father, and I remem- 
ber having to appear between them in the court of 
law, in which the struggle for my person was being 
decided. Schumann proved to the entire satisfac- 
tion of the court that he was of age, and perfectly 
well able to support a wife, whilst my father, hav- 
ing no just ground for his refusal, simply loaded 
him with insult. The decision was accordingly 
given in our favour, and we were legally authorised 
to become man and wife. At this my father's rage 
literally knew no bounds. Had he not often sworn 
that his daughter should never marry a beggarly 
musician, that he would hardly consider a prince 
good enough for her! So he turned me out of the 
house, refusing even to let me take my own few 
possessions with me, my stepmother going so far 
as to tear off my finger a little ring I always wore, 
as it had been my mother's, but which she now gave 
to her own daughter. Thus was I cast out of my 
father's house, and from the moment the door closed 
behind me I never saw his face again, nor ever heard 
a word more from him. It was as if I were really 
dead to him henceforth. But I did not grieve. It 
was by my husband's side that I wandered forth, 

19 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



happy for the first time in my life, in the conscious- 
ness of our mutual affection. 

i ' The ten years that followed were years of happi- 
ness indeed, of such happiness as it is rarely given 
to mortals to know on earth. I lived for my hus- 
band alone, entirely wrapt up in him. I watched 
every change in his countenance, I studied his every 
mood, and had so thoroughly identified myself with 
him that my own brain was on the verge of becoming 
affected too, when his began to give way. I did not 
understand at first that there was anything the mat- 
ter with him, and continued to take pride as ever in 
following and participating in every phase through 
which his mind passed. But that mind was darken- 
ing, although I knew it not. His fits of melancholy 
grew more frequent and of longer duration, as 
though a baleful shadow had fallen across his soul. 
One night he suddenly awakened me, begging me to 
get up, to leave him, to stay no longer in the room. 
Astonished and alarmed, but accustomed to obey 
his lightest wish in all things, I complied with the 
strange request. Next day he told me that it was 
his fears for me, for my safety, which had induced 
him to send me from him. 'I feared lest I should 
hurt you!' he groaned. For he felt that he was 
gradually losing all control over his own actions, 
that something outside himself was continually urg- 
ing him to violence against those whom he loved best 
in the world. Musical phantasies mixed themselves 
with the rest. Thus he was for ever imagining that 
he heard sounds, sometimes just one note of music 
perpetually repeated, and then again the tones would 

20 



CLARA SCHUMANN 



be modulated, and vary, and combine and weave 
themselves into melody! And these snatches of 
melody he still noted down. But worse was at hand, 
for the day soon came, the terrible day, which put 
an end to all my earthly happiness, and after which 
it was no longer possible to conceal the truth from 
myself and others. My dear, unfortunate husband 
had managed to steal out of the house unperceived, 
and had attempted to drown himself in the Ehine! 
He was saved, but I was not allowed to see him 
again. It was said that it would be dangerous for 
him, for both of us. But he sent me a most touching 
message, begging me to forgive him the pain which 
he knew he must have caused me, and explaining 
how it was that he could not have acted otherwise — 
he felt that it was the only means of saving us both 
much trouble and sorrow. It almost broke my heart 
to hear this. 

"Indeed, at first I could do nothing but sit and 
cry my eyes out at the immensity of the misfortune 
which had come upon me. I was alone in the world, 
with my helpless little ones, for he who had been our 
protection and support was himself now the most 
helpless of all. But it was the very immensity of 
my misfortune which roused me out of the apathy 
into which I had fallen, as I realised the necessity 
of an effort on my part for all these weak and help- 
less ones, who now depended solely on me. To my 
father I did not dare to appeal, and even now, in 
my dire distress, he gave no sign, sent me no word of 
kindness. But other friends took active steps to 
help me, and with their assistance, thanks to the 

21 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



sums they collected for me, I was able to put my 
affairs in order, and start giving concerts to support 
my family. So things went on for the next three 
years ; I travelled about, playing in all the principal 
towns in Europe, and my husband remained under 
the care of a doctor in Bonn. All this time I never 
once saw him, although I was always entreating to 
be allowed to do so. 

' ' Then one day, just as I was about to give a con- 
cert in London, I suddenly received a letter, inform- 
ing me that my husband had only a few days more 
to live, that I must hurry back if I wished to be in 
time to see him once more ! And like this I had to 
let myself be taken to the concert-room, and like 
this I played! People have since told me that I 
never played so well in my whole life. Of that I 
know nothing. I went through my work mechanic- 
ally, feeling half dazed, neither knowing nor caring 
what or how I played, and not a note of the music 
reaching my own ears. At the end the whole room 
seemed to spin round before my eyes, but I made my 
way out somehow, and in a very few minutes was 
already on my way to Bonn. 

1 1 When I arrived I was at first refused entrance 
to the room. But my mind was fully made up. I 
was determined that no power on earth should now 
keep us longer apart. I simply said: 'If he is really 
dying, then my presence can harm him no longer, 
and I insist upon being admitted ! 9 So they let me 
in. But it was a terrible shock to see him, so 
changed that at first I should hardly have known 
him. Only his eyes, those dear, loving eyes, were still 

22 



CLARA SCHUMANN 



the same, and as they fixed themselves on me I had 
the happiness of seeing the full light of recognition 
come back to them. 'Ah! my own!' he exclaimed, 
stretching out his arms toward me. He was fright- 
fully weak, having of late refused all nourishment, 
under the delusion that the attendants wished to 
poison him. I could, however, prevail on him to 
take a little food when I brought it to him, and his 
eyes never left me, following my every movement. 
In the midst of my sorrow I yet felt a contentment 
at my heart that I had not known during these last 
years, whilst I was separated from him. I might 
almost say I was happy once more, just in being 
with him, and in feeling that his affection was un- 
changed. But it could not last long — his strength 
was ebbing fast — soon came the last parting, and 
then all was over, and I was really alone in the wide 
world, with my poor, fatherless children !" 

She broke down completely on these last words, 
and for some minutes we sat together in perfect 
silence, my tears flowing in sympathy, for I was 
deeply moved at witnessing her grief. Her story 
was made the more touching by the simplicity with 
which it was told ; this went to my heart more surely 
than the most studied eloquence. And it was ever 
the one theme — always of him she spoke ! She came 
back constantly to this one period of life, as if all 
the rest — everything that had taken place since — did 
not count at all. Evidently her own life had come 
to an end for her when her husband died. If she 
lived on at all it was simply in the idea of contribut- 
ing to raise a monument to his fame. She was 

23 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



really quivering with indignation when she related 
how on one occasion, after one of her recitals, a lady 
had actually asked her if her husband had not also 
been a pianist? But my contemptuous exclamation, 
" Oh, the poor thing !" made her smile in spite of 
herself. I remember, too, how I could never satisfy 
her with my rendering of the little piece called 
"Happiness enough.'' She was always entreating 
me to put more fullness and softness into it, to make 
it overflow, so to say, with happiness. And in the 
depths of her eyes I read the triumphant certitude 
that this music told the happiness that had once been 
hers, and that to none other would it ever be given 
to express it as she could. Ah ! those were precious 
hours, indeed, which I passed with her, and the 
lessons were something much more to me than mere 
music-lessons, for even greater and nobler than the 
artist was the woman I learnt to know in them. 

In the month of May we went to Moscow, and it 
was there I heard Schumann's Variations for two 
pianos played by Mme. Schumann and Nicolas 
Eubinstein. The latter was an admirable pianist, 
gifted with great delicacy and depth of feeling, and 
if without the fiery, almost demoniacal, inspiration 
that distinguished his brother's playing, this for 
the duet on two pianos was rather an advantage than 
otherwise. 

After that several years passed before I saw 
Mme. Schumann again, and then it being announced 
that she would appear at a concert in Cologne with 
Stockhausen, my mother and I went over for it. We 
went early in the day, so as to be in time for the last 

24 



CLARA SCHUMANN 



rehearsal, but at this we had the disappointment of 
not hearing Mme. Schumann, for she had met with 
a slight accident, which obliged her to rest till the 
evening, and her place at the piano was taken by 
Brahms. In spite of her absence, it was all the 
same a most interesting rehearsal. I had the pleas- 
ure of hearing Brahms play and Stockhausen sing, 
and enjoyed everything immensely. I could not 
help noticing, however, that my mother's thoughts 
were entirely elsewhere, and it annoyed me that she 
should let anything distract her attention from the 
glorious music. Nor did we stay quite to the end, 
much to my disappointment, but drove off to the 
Flora-garden, and lunched there. And as we sat 
there, I could not help noticing that we seemed to 
attract the attention of a little group of gentlemen, 
strangers, as I thought them, who were walking 
up and down, and one of whom at last seated himself 
at a little table quite close to ours, looking at me so 
hard, that I slightly turned away from him. But 
when we rose to leave, they all three came up to us, 
and we recognised Herr von Werner, whose ac- 
quaintance we had made at Prince Hohenzollern's 
whilst his two companions were none other than the 
young Prince of Eoumania, and the latter 's repre- 
sentative in Paris, the last mentioned being the 
gentleman who had just been observing me so 
closely. But I was sincerely glad to meet the young 
Prince again, for I had seen much of him in Berlin 
some years before, and was full of admiration for 
the adventurous spirit and strong sense of duty in 
which he had entered on his task in his new country. 

25 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

So I welcomed with pleasure the opportunity of talk- 
ing to him again, and walked on ahead with him, 
discussing all sorts of things, my mother following 
with the two other gentlemen. We wandered from 
the ' ' Flora' ' to the Zoological Gardens, and after 
a long hunt for the monkey house, found the little 
creatures already installed in their winter quarters. 
I remember holding out my hand to one of them, 
rather to the horror of the Prince, who protested 
against seeing my finger clasped in the rough little 
brown paw. But the time had passed so quickly, 
and I found my companion's conversation so inter- 
esting, — (he said afterwards that I told him his 
political views were quite Machiavellian!) — two 
hours had gone by before we got into the carriage 
again, and as we drove away, I exclaimed : — 6 ' There 
is somebody with whom one can enjoy talking! He 
is really a charming young man ! ' ' My mother said 
nothing at all. We stopped at Mme. Schumann's, 
for I was determined to have a little talk with her 
before the evening, — merely to see her at the concert 
would not have satisfied me at all. The dear old 
days in St. Petersburg were a little brought back to 
me, as I sat holding her hand, and listening to all 
she had to tell us of what had happened since we 
last met. But she was somewhat depressed, having 
just parted with her third daughter who had recently 
married an Italian Count, and unable to resign her- 
self to the separation. ' ' Only think what it means, ' * 
she said to my mother, — "to have brought up one's 
child, loved and cared for her all these years, and 
then some stranger comes along, and carries her off, 
one knows not to what!" Again my mother kept 

26 



CLARA SCHUMANN 

silence, but I could not help thinking that there was 
quite a strange expression on her face. When we 
left, there was only just time to dress for the con- 
cert. My toilette was very hurriedly made, in spite 
of the satisfaction I felt in the very pretty and be- 
coming dress — a white flowered silk over a pale blue 
underskirt — which I was to wear, for my one fear 
was of missing any of the music! But whilst I 
was dressing, the Prince of Eoumania had been 
announced, and stayed, and stayed, and I could 
hardly control my impatience, till at last I heard 
him leave, and rushed to my mother, to hurry her. 
But the serious look with which she met me checked 
the impatient exclamation on my lips. Taking my 
arm in hers, she began to pace the room with me, 
saying, ' i The Prince of Eoumania was here just now 
to ask you to be his wife. ' ' She stopped and looked 
at me, half expecting the decided refusal, with which 
all such proposals had hitherto been met. But in- 
stead, — 1 ' Already f" was the only word I brought 
out. I said to myself, — he hardly knows me, he can- 
not love me, he happens to have heard how well and 
carefully I have been brought up, he thinks I may 
prove the suitable companion, the fittest helpmate 
for him in the work he has set himself. And a 
thousand similar thoughts flashed like lightning 
through my brain. But through it all I heard my 
mother telling me of the high and noble mission 
awaiting me, should I accept the Prince's hand, of 
the wide field in which my energies might find scope, 
and the honour she accounted it that his choice 
should have fallen on me. As she went on talking, 
my hesitation seemed to fade away, and it was not 

27 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

long before I said to her, — "Let him come! He is 
the right one!" In a very short time the Prince 
had returned, I was summoned to the room, and 
remember going towards him with my hand out- 
stretched, which he raised to his lips, and I remem- 
ber too the words he spoke; but my words to him 
I do not recall, though my mother treasured them 
in her heart, and had them engraved below my por- 
trait she sent him. She had already sent a little 
word in all haste to Mme. Schumann, telling her of 
my betrothal, and that she must not count on us for 
that evening. The rest of it passed quickly indeed, 
the Prince having only a very few hours to spend 
with us, as he had to return to Paris that same night. 
As long as he was with us, telling me of the work we 
should accomplish together, of the difficulties we 
must encounter and overcome, so far, all was well, I 
had caught the fire of his enthusiasm, and felt equal 
to all that might be demanded of me. But no sooner 
was he gone, than doubts and hesitations once more 
assailed me. Had I not been too hasty, too precipi- 
tate, in making up my mind on a question of such 
importance, on which depended all the happiness of 
my future life? I was no longer so young, very 
nearly six-and-twenty, and that would perhaps make 
it all the harder for me, to give up my freedom and 
independence, resigning myself as it were to an- 
other's control. One of whom, after all, I knew so 
little, beyond what everyone else knew and could 
read of him in the newspapers! Was 1hat a suffi- 
cient guarantee of happiness, I asked myself, that 
his chivalrous character pleased me, that I knew him 
to be the soul of honour, and that his mother had 

28 



H.M. King Charles of Roumania 



CLARA SCHUMANN 



ever been one of the idols of my girlhood! Unluck- 
ily too, the photograph which he had given me made 
him look very stern, and that quite alarmed me. I 
thought, if he can ever look like that, I shall be 
frightened to death ! But I took comfort in looking 
at the little opal cross he had also given me, finding 
in the soft pure flame of the beautiful milk-white 
stones, a sort of presage of everything that is good 
and noble, and my fears gradually quieted down. 
Not altogether, though. They came back often dur- 
ing the four weeks of my engagement, and only left 
me entirely when I stood with my affianced husband 
before the altar. 

With all this, alas! I never saw my dear Mme. 
Schumann again. I had little thought when we left 
her that eventful day, looking forward to meeting 
again the same evening at the concert, that it was 
the very last time we should meet on earth! I won- 
der if she ever guessed the extent of my affection 
and veneration. Two days before the wedding a 
concert was given in honour of the bridegroom and 
myself, and for this my brother tried to arrange 
for Mme. Schumann to come, but she was unfort- 
unately prevented. After that I was myself so 
far away, plunged heart and soul in the new duties 
that were now to be my lifework, and so much ab- 
sorbed by these, that I only returned twice to my old 
home in the course of the next ten years. Besides, 
in the meantime I had become a mother — that un- 
speakable happiness was mine, and then — and then it 
was taken from me, and all was dark around me, 
nevermore to become light for me henceforth on 
earth ! 



CHAPTER II 



GRANDMAMMA 

I cannot rightly remember any of my grand- 
parents, for grandmamma, as we all called her, 
whom I learnt to know and love in my childhood, 
was in reality only my mother's stepmother, my 
grandfather, the Duke of Nassau's second wife. 
She was a daughter of the terrible Prince Paul of 
Wurtemberg, so notorious for the violence of his 
temper, and her mother was one of the lovely Prin- 
cesses of Altenburg, another of whom had been my 
grandfather's first wife, and died in giving birth 
to my mother, her eighth child. As their mother 
was a Princess of Mecklenburg, sister to Queen 
Louisa of Prussia, my grandmother and the old 
Emperor William were first cousins. 

Five years had passed since the death of his first 
wife, before my grandfather could be persuaded to 
think of marrying again, so deeply did he regret 
this good and amiable woman, and so happy had he 
been with her. But then, hearing so much said in 
praise of this young niece of hers, he suddenly 
determined to see and judge for himself, whether 
the good looks and other good qualities with which 
she was credited, should seem sufficient to compen- 
sate for the slight deafness from which she suffered. 
So he set off for Stuttgart incognito, even taking 
the precaution to disguise himself and muffle up his 
face, and watching his opportunity, he followed the 

30 



GRANDMAMMA 



young princess home from church, and taking up 
his stand under her window, listened to her conver- 
sation with her companions, in order to find out 
whether her infirmity prevented her taking part in 
it to advantage. Her beauty and grace so enchanted 
him, his mind was made up at once, and throwing 
off the muffler that concealed his features, he stepped 
forth in full view of the astonished little group. 
There was a cry of — "Uncle Wilhelm!" from some 
of the young people, and then the next moment 
the intruder had vanished, as quickly as he came, 
only to re-appear a little later with all due formality, 
in the character of suitor for the hand of the fair 
young girl, whom he carried off as his bride. It 
was no such easy matter for her, the scarce eighteen- 
year-old wife, to enter her new home and take up 
her position there, in the house in which, but a short 
time since, she the young cousin had played, a child 
herself, with the other children. Three of these 
were about her own age; the two elder sons, Adol- 
phus and Maurice, now almost grown up, and The- 
rese, the eldest daughter, although only fifteen, very 
much spoilt and very independent, and too much 
accustomed to play the part of mistress of the house 
and have her own way in everything, to feel disposed 
to part with these privileges in favour of anyone 
else. It was therefore the very greatest comfort 
to the youthful stepmother to find herself warmly 
welcomed by the youngest member of the family, 
a real child still, my mother, then a little girl of five 
with her long fair hair falling in curls below her 
waist. The very warmest affection sprang up at 

31 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



once between them, and lasted throughout their 
whole lives. 

Grandmamma's own life had been anything but 
smooth and untroubled from her earliest years, and 
it is no wonder that when she one day later on 
sat down to write her recollections, she should have 
done so under the title — Histoire de mes Peines. 
Her parents' married life had been excessively un- 
happy; her father having even, in order to rid him- 
self of a wife he detested, gone to the length on one 
occasion of actually hiding a man in her bedroom, 
and then bursting in upon her followed by the whole 
Court, in the hope that his unsuspecting victim's 
confusion might lend her an appearance of guilt! 
But his diabolical plot fell through, for, all helpless 
and defenceless as she was, the poor lady's inno- 
cence was perfectly evident, and her accuser's char- 
acter only too well known for anyone to put faith 
in anything he said. It was shortly after this 
charming exploit that Prince Paul determined to 
send his daughters to school in France. I am not 
sure when it was exactly, whether at an earlier or 
later date, that he gave them into the care of such 
an ill-natured governess, that they had to suffer 
for the rest of their lives from the effects of her 
petty tyranny, grandmamma's deafness having 
been caused, she always believed, from her having 
been forced by her tormentor to stand sometimes 
for a couple of hours at a time, barefoot in her night- 
dress on the cold stone floor, whilst her sister Char- 
lotte's digestion was ruined by her never being 
allowed to satisfy the cravings of her healthy young 

32 



GRANDMAMMA 



appetite. They were no better off during their 
schooldays in France. In the establishment in 
which their father placed them, the spirit of the 
Eevolution still prevailed to such an extent, that 
everyone of aristocratic birth was looked upon with 
suspicion, and as for the title of princess, to bear 
that was little less than a crime! So that the poor 
little Wurtemberg princesses had a hard time of it, 
mistrusted and shunned by their schoolfellows, who 
refused even to let them join in their games, and 
played all sorts of mischievous tricks on them, whilst 
the governesses for their part vented their dislike in 
imposing on them the most unsuitable tasks — even of 
a menial description. Not only from grandmamma 
herself, but also from her sister, afterwards the 
Grand Duchess Helene of Eussia, with whom much 
of my own girlhood was spent, did I hear all about 
this. It was she who told me how often in her sad- 
ness and loneliness she would seat herself on the 
stairs, to watch the movements of the hands of the 
big clock opposite, as if that were her only friend 
and companion, listening through the long dreary 
hours to its melancholy ticking, and counting the 
slow monotonous swinging of the pendulum back- 
wards and forwards. 

When the sisters returned to the Wurtemberg 
Court, they were as lonely as ever, for they had be- 
come strangers to everyone, including the King and 
Queen, during their exile. But soon, the Emperor 
Nicholas having seen the one, asked for her hand 
in marriage for his brother Michael; and thus it 
was that the Princess Charlotte was sent to Eussia 
3 33 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



in charge of a governess — for she was only fourteen 
years old — to finish her education and be received 
under the name of Helene into the Orthodox Church 
as a preliminary to the wedding. 

And so grandmamma was left alone and but for 
the occasional society of her two brothers, more for- 
saken and disconsolate than ever. It was when she 
was eighteen, as I have said, that a change 
came into her life also, with her marriage. But the 
husband with whom she entered her new home was 
no young man, he was the widower of her aunt, and 
she had been accustomed to regard him in the light 
of an uncle, — one of the older generation, rather 
to be respected and looked up to than to be treated 
as an equal. So that my grandfather need have 
been at no pains to inspire her with awe for his 
person and frighten her into submissiveness. How- 
ever, that there might be no mistake at all as to the 
position he intended to assume, the wedding-cere- 
mony was no sooner over, and the newly-married 
couple alone in their travelling carriage, than he 
proceeded to light his pipe, and closing the win- 
dows, smoked hard in her face for a few hours, just 
to see if she would venture to remonstrate or com- 
plain ! Needless to say, she was too well broken in 
by a long course of severity, to dare to utter a word 
of protest, and it seems to me that had her husband 
but known how joyless her youth had hitherto been, 
he must have tried rather to cheer her and raise her 
spirits, than to crush her still more by the assump- 
tion of so brutal an attitude. Unfortunately in 
Germany the custom still prevails, of trying to keep 

34 



GRANDMAMMA 



women in subjection. A foolish notion survives 
among us, that women ought to keep silence, and 
thus, while our wiser French neighbours demand of 
their women-folk to take the lead in all conversa- 
tion, which they enliven and stimulate with their 
wit and brilliancy, the German on the other hand 
expects members of the other sex to be content 
to listen in silent admiration, needle in hand, while 
he holds forth ponderously on whatever subject he 
pleases. The natural reaction from this absurd 
tyranny is a sort of revolt of womankind, attended 
by exaggeration in the opposite direction — a tend- 
ency that certainly deprives its adherents of much 
of their former grace and charm, whilst it is to be 
questioned whether there be any compensating gain 
in strength. In all this we have undoubtedly fallen 
behind our ancestors, for in the old Germanic tribes 
not only was the entire rule and management of the 
household given up to women, but our rude fore- 
fathers also reverenced in them their best friends 
and counsellors, priestesses of the hearth and altar, 
superior beings in fact. It was only when Eoman 
institutions had the supremacy, that the contrary 
opinion came into force, and was carried to the 
utmost extremes, it being found convenient to 
ascribe inferior brain-power to those who were to 
be reduced to subjection. I wonder if it never 
struck any of the wiseacres who propounded this 
ludicrous theory, that as the propagation of the 
human race can only be carried on by the co-opera- 
tion of the female portion, it must, if the latter be 
in reality so wofully inferior, necessarily in course 

35 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



of time deteriorate altogether ! Surely, if they were 
not blinded by their own vanity, each one of these 
superior beings must be aware that his first youth- 
ful health and physical vigour, together probably 
with much of the mental and moral force on which 
he prides himself, were in the first instance derived 
from one of the sex he so looks down upon, and im- 
bibed with his mother's milk! What is strangest of 
all is that women should so long have put up with 
being treated in this manner. Was it that they 
did not think it worth their while to protest, that 
for all these centuries they have smilingly seen 
through the unwarrantable pretensions of their hus- 
bands, brothers and sons, calm and confident in their 
own quiet strength, which must, if they but chose to 
put it forth, prevail against irrational blustering? 
To me, in any case, it would appear rather a con- 
fession of weakness on the part of some of my 
sisters, when I hear them clamouring for their so- 
called rights. Which of the old Eoman legislators 
was it, who in helping to frame the laws which press 
so hardly on our sex, gave it as his reason, that 
unless women were firmly kept down, they would 
soon get the upper-hand altogether, being, as he had 
the courage and honesty to confess — "so much 
stronger and cleverer than men!" 

My mother has very often told me of her joy at 
the arrival of the pretty new mamma, who looked 
so sweet, and took her in her arms so kindly, as if 
she felt it a real comfort to find this little one pre- 
pared to love her, and to whom she might try to be a 
real mother. Not quite as she would have wished 

36 



GRANDMAMMA 



though, as she soon found out, for that would not 
have fallen in with my grandfather's views. He 
wanted his wife for himself, and expected her to be 
constantly in her own rooms awaiting his good will 
and pleasure, and not that he should perhaps be told 
if he went to look for her there, that she had gone 
upstairs to the schoolroom or nursery. It was for 
this reason that my mother in her turn had to con- 
tinue leading a lonely life in her childhood, only 
seeing her parents at stated hours, and ever in the 
greatest dread of her father, who, if he were an- 
noyed at anything, generally, I regret to say, laid 
about him with his riding-whip pretty freely. Such 
energetic modes of enforcing obedience or express- 
ing disapproval were already somewhat going out 
of fashion in my childhood, and I am glad to think 
how many children there now are who have never 
received a blow, and are wholly free from the ter- 
rorising influences under which earlier generations 
grew up. 

My mother's first impression of her stepmother 
was, as I have said, one of pure enthusiasm. She 
was old enough to feel the charm of a pretty face, 
and to observe the pride her father took in his 
young wife's beauty, and the intense satisfaction 
he felt in witnessing the admiration she excited. 
He was rather fond of teasing his little daughter 
with the prospect of very soon finding a husband 
for her, to which the little girl would reply quite 
gravely — "No, I do not mean ever to get married!" 
And her father would cast an enquiring glance at his 
wife, as if wondering whether she had the air of a 

37 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



victim of the marriage yoke, to be however promptly 
reassured by her smile of unaffected amusement at 
the child 's ingenuousness. Grandmamma 's first 
baby did not live, but she had in course of time four 
other children, who were to the little elder sister a 
source of unfailing delight. She would amuse them 
for hours, telling them the most wonderful stories, 
which she made up herself, and the little ones simply 
adored her. For her own elder brothers my mother 
had, as I shall have occasion to relate, an almost 
passionate attachment. I must speak of them in 
their own place, but in this sort of family history, 
the lives are all so mixed up together, and have so 
many points of contact, one must from time to time 
let a side-light fall on some, whose turn to be treated 
at length has not yet come. 

The occasional visits which the terrible Prince 
Paul paid his daughter were rather like the explo- 
sion of a bomb in the household. As an instance of 
the alarm which his presence inspired, my mother 
used to relate with amusement the story of her step- 
mother 's consternation at finding her one day alone 
with him for a few minutes, imitating the tone of 
commiseration with which she said to her: — "What, 
all alone, poor child! Go upstairs and rest!" It 
was the only time that she ever heard grandmamma 
say a word that could imply the slightest dislike to 
her father. Her manner towards him was always 
perfect, and she never criticised his conduct. 

My mother was just fourteen, grandmamma there- 
fore only twenty-seven, when my grandfather sud- 
denly died. Grandmamma was so inconsolable, that 

38 



GRANDMAMMA 



for the first week she shut herself up in her own 
room, refusing to see anyone, and shedding floods 
of tears. And yet her married life cannot have 
been a very cheerful one. What dreary evenings 
those must have been, on which her husband came 
home tired from his shooting, and fell asleep on the 
sofa directly after dinner, his wife and daughters 
not daring to speak a word, for fear of disturbing 
his slumbers ! Nor was it perhaps much better, to 
have at other times to stand the whole evening be- 
side the billiard-table, looking on at the interminable 
games he played with his chamberlains. As for the 
visits from other Courts, these were mostly terribly 
stiff and formal affairs, and if, as was sometimes 
the case, the Ehine-steamers bringing the expected 
guests were delayed, then it meant several hours of 
tedious waiting. Standing about waiting was part 
of the daily business of Court life, and children 
were not spared, they had to do just like the rest 
As for asking them if they were tired or bored, 
that occurred to nobody; it was the proper thing 
and had to be done, and that was enough. 

It was only much later that I could at all appre- 
ciate what infinite tact must have been requisite on 
grandmamma 's part, to enable her, the young widow 
with her little children, to take up exactly the right 
position towards her stepson, now Duke of Nassau, 
so little younger than herself. But her innate sense 
of the fitness of things pointed out to her exactly the 
right line of conduct, and it was with the most per- 
fect womanly dignity and grace that she settled 
down at once into the part of the middle-aged, one 

39 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

might say the elderly woman, which she had decided 
should henceforth be hers. She had a stately way 
of receiving visitors, nearly always standing, and 
with the doors on all sides thrown wide open. Even 
her doctor was accustomed to stand and talk to her, 
or else would walk up and down with her, hat in 
hand, through the rooms with their big folding-doors 
opening one into the other. All this perpetual liv- 
ing on view as it were, this lack of privacy, seemed 
to us then perfectly natural — one is always inclined 
to take the difficulties in the lives of others as a 
matter of course, especially if they themselves 
accept them unmurmuringly. So that it never even 
occurred to me how frightfully dull and monotonous 
was the life grandmamma led — just the same little 
round of duties and occupations day by day, a drive 
to the same spot at the same hour, varied only by a 
little walk while the carriage waited for her, and 
just the same set of people received in audience over 
and over again. There could of course never be 
any pleasure to her in receiving visitors, on account 
of her deafness, but she never let this interfere with 
the enjoyment of others, and nothing pleased her 
so much as to sit, smiling and serene, in the midst 
of a crowd of gay and laughing young people, whose 
words she could not hear, but whose bright laughing 
faces enabled her to share in their mirth. It is in 
looking back on them now, that such details throw 
fresh light for me on the inner meaning of that beau- 
tiful and serene, yet in reality solitary existence, 
and I reflect on the amount of silent endurance, the 
long practice in self-restraint and self-sacrifice, all 

40 



GRANDMAMMA 



the disappointments and disenchantments, by which 
in the end that appearance of placid content, of 
sweet and smiling resignation, had been acquired. 

My own happiest hours were those spent with 
grandmamma. Oh ! how we loved everything about 
her! — her house, — that pretty house, standing on a 
hill covered with rose-trees, so that it was a perfect 
bower of roses during the summer months, and in- 
side fragrant the whole year round with the perfume 
of the flowers that filled it everywhere ! She had at 
first taken another house in Wiesbaden, for she 
insisted on moving from Biebrich directly after her 
husband's death, in order to give up the Castle to 
his eldest son, who then had this house built on 
purpose for her, and in it she lived the whole of her 
widowed life. It was called after her the "Paul- 
inenpalais, ,, and bore that name still for many years 
after her death. But now it has been sold, has 
passed into other hands, and retains nothing of the 
charm that belonged to it in grandmamma's time. 
How well I remember every nook and corner of it, 
each one endeared to me by some special association, 
and with grandmamma's presence pervading it all, 
— the drawing-room we thought so lovely, with its 
oriental decorations, in imitation of the Alhambra, 
and her dear little boudoir, with its soft blue hang- 
ings, and the delicately scented note-paper on her 
writing-table, of the special pale green tint she 
always used, for the sake of her somewhat weak 
eyes. 

And what lovely fine crochet-work was done by 
those beautiful hands of hers, gloved or ungloved. 

41 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

One wore gloves much more in those days, it was 
considered a duty to take care of one's hands, and 
would have been condemned as a mark of excessive 
ill-breeding, to hold out a hand that was not beauti- 
fully cared for, for others to kiss. Very rarely 
though did one give one's hand at all. It is very 
different now-a-days, when young princes content 
themselves with a silent shake of the hand, and 
young princesses too find nothing to say, and put it 
on the ground of their shyness. My mother knew 
what it meant to suffer from shyness, she hardly 
ever entered the drawing-room in her youth without 
having shed tears beforehand, so terrible an ordeal 
was it to her, but she knew what would have awaited 
her had she not at once gone round the circle of 
guests speaking to each in turn. Nor did grand- 
mamma's deafness ever prevent her from entering 
into conversation with each person presented to her, 
finding the right thing to say to each one, whilst only 
her heightened colour betrayed to those who knew 
her well, the torture it was to her to go on talking 
thus, without hearing more than a chance word here 
and there of the other's replies. It was in her draw- 
ing-room that I took unconsciously my first lessons 
in deportment, her way of holding a reception seem- 
ing to me so gracious and so natural, I felt that no 
better model could be found. To me she was in- 
variably of the most exquisite kindness, but I should 
never have taken it into my head to be otherwise 
than extremely respectful towards her. I was never 
happier than when sitting at her feet, playing with 
the tips of her delicate tapering fingers, which she 

42 



GRANDMAMMA 



left in my clasp, whilst she went on conversing with 
the others. Sometimes she took me out for a drive, 
and I felt very proud at being alone with her in 
the carriage. "Sit very upright/ ' she used to say, 
i ' and then people will think you are grown-up ! ' ' 

But the greatest delight of all was to be allowed 
to be present at grandmamma's toilet, to watch her 
hair being dressed, and see her arrange her curls, 
as she always did herself, with her own hands. Her 
hair was coiled round at the back, and a piece of 
black lace hung over it, and then in the front the 
mass of soft little curls shaded her forehead most 
becomingly, after the fashion of her youth, to which 
she always clung. Nor did she ever change the style 
of her dress, during all the years of her widowhood. 
Her dressing-room seemed to me quite a little sanc- 
tuary, so dainty and sweet, with the delicious smell 
of the rose-water she used to bathe her eyes, and all 
the beautiful glass-stoppered bottles set out on the 
toilet-table, and yet there were no toilet arts or 
mysteries at all, nothing that need be concealed from 
a child's gaze. 

Grandmamma often stayed with us for months 
together, for my mother and she were intensely fond 
of one another, and there was even a great likeness 
between them, which was not surprising, as they 
were first cousins. She wrote a great deal, had a 
special facility with her pen, and many a document 
for the use of her stepson was drawn up by her. 
French she wrote with perhaps even greater ease, 
always employing that language for any notes she 
made for her own reference, for it was of course the 

43 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



language of her youth, being spoken exclusively at 
the German Courts in the old days. My mother 
also spoke it before she could speak German, hardly 
knowing a word of the latter language at the time 
of her father's second marriage. 

The year 1848, so full of unrest throughout Eu- 
rope, did not pass unfelt in Nassau. My uncle, the 
Duke, was absent when the revolution broke out, and 
an angry mob collected round grandmamma's palace 
in Wiesbaden, and even began piling faggots at 
every corner, with the evident intention of setting it 
on fire. Then when popular excitement was at the 
highest pitch, two or three delegates of the revolu- 
tionary party came up to demand of any members 
of the ducal family the signing of the new consti- 
tution. There was no time for reflection; grand- 
mamma had to sign the paper herself, and let her 
son Nicholas, a boy of fourteen, do the same, and 
then she took up her stand on the balcony, with what 
outward calm she might, but in her heart longing for 
her stepson to return and restore order. At last, 
to her relief, she perceived the plumes of his helmet 
on the other side of the square, and soon could recog- 
nise him, in full uniform, making his way quietly 
on foot through the thickest of the crowd. He had 
heard the news of the revolution at Frankfort, and 
jumping on the first railway-engine that left, came 
back with all speed. In her joy grandmamma 
waved her handkerchief as a signal, and in a mo- 
ment, from all the houses round, whose inmates had 
been watching the course of events behind closed 
windows, countless handkerchiefs were waving also, 

44 



GRANDMAMMA 

notwithstanding the danger of thus attracting to 
oneself a shot from the insurgents. There was an 
anxious pause whilst the Duke came forward to the 
edge of the balcony, and leaning over, called down 
into the crowd below, in a clear and decided if not 
very well-pleased tone of voice, — "The engagement 
my mother and brother have entered into for me, I 
will fulfil !" The last syllable echoing across the 
square with cutting emphasis, as I have often been 
told by those who were present at the scene. 

Nassau was a gem among the states of Germany. 
There was an alliterative saying about the sources of 
the country's wealth: from water, in the first place, 
for besides the Rhine flowing through it, there were all 
the magnificent mineral and medicinal springs ; then 
its wine, the very best in Germany, and in the whole 
world! Next, the woods, of such splendid and lux- 
uriant growth, and the home of innumerable wild 
creatures, — feathered and four-footed game of all 
sorts! As for wheat, there were corn-fields in 
abundance, enclosed by fruit trees, whose branches 
were drooping with their load ; and last, though not 
least, the ways, those roads for which the land was 
famous, — the so-called vicinal ways, — were as good 
as the finest highways elsewhere. With all this, 
rates and taxes were things unknown, in that for- 
tunate country, in those halcyon days. The state 
was prosperous, the reigning family wealthy, and 
any deficit in the revenue was supplied by the gam- 
ing-tables at Wiesbaden. As these were only open 
to foreigners, neither the townspeople nor the inno- 
cent countryfolk around were ever exposed to the 

45 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



temptations and dangers so eloquently set forth in 
certain pamphlets. There, the misery of the peas- 
antry is depicted in moving terms, — honest families 
reduced to the direst poverty after losing their little 
all in the gambling-saloons! But it so happened 
that no peasant was ever admitted inside the doors, 
or had he succeeded in gaining entrance, he would 
very speedily have been turned out, before he had 
time even to watch the play, much less stake his 
own money! An officer in the army seen there 
would have been immediately cashiered, nor was 
access to the tables granted to any magistrate or 
functionary, or to anyone belonging to the territory. 
It is not that I wish to undertake the defence of 
gambling, but, apart from the question of its in- 
trinsic immorality, so much that is erroneous has 
been written on the subject and has come to my own 
notice, that I cannot refrain from stating here the 
facts of the case, as they are known to me. For 
Nassau it may emphatically be said, that the institu- 
tion only benefited the country, very materially add- 
ing to its prosperity, without doing it any harm at 
all. 

On rainy days, our favourite walk was under the 
arcades, where we wandered up and down, looking 
in at the shop windows, that seemed to me an Eldo- 
rado, with all the treasures they displayed. And 
never shall I forget my sensations, the day that for 
the first time I possessed a whole thaler of my own, 
to spend as I liked! I drove with grandmamma to 
the Arcade, and we got out there, that I might make 
my purchase. Now I had long since set my heart 

46 



GRANDMAMMA 



on the loveliest little basket, lined with pink silk, 
which I had often gazed at with longing eyes, think- 
ing it quite an unattainable object. "That costs a 
gulden, ' ' said the shopkeeper, in answer to my some- 
what embarrassed question, for it seemed to me 
rather an indelicate thing to ask the price of any- 
thing, a feeling I have not altogether got over to 
this day. A gulden! my spirits sank. "Ah! I have 
only a thaler!" "But that is a great deal too 
much," replied the friendly shopman, with whom I 
was delighted, as in addition to my purchase, he 
handed me back numberless little coins, with which 
I at once bought several other charming knicknacks. 
For I could not tolerate the idea of taking a single 
pfennig home with me. To have money in one's 
pocket seemed to me already then a real misfort- 
une, and I have never changed in that respect. 
How should one change? Does one not remain the 
same from the cradle to the grave? And what a 
number of pretty little things I had for my money ! 
Some of them I have to this day, for I could not bear 
to part with them, and brought them with me to 
Eoumania. 

The year 1856 saw us for the last time all assem- 
bled round grandmamma, in the month of February, 
to celebrate her forty-fifth birthday. I was just 
twelve years old, but already so familiar with the 
outward signs of ill-health and sickness, that the 
change in her appearance at once astonished and 
even disquieted me. It was the strange bright patch 
of red on each cheek that struck me especially. Her 
complexion had always remained brilliant, and her 

47 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



cheeks rosy, but now they were much redder, and 
seemed to be encircled by a hard line that made the 
skin around look whiter than ever. I think she had 
also a little dry hacking cough. It soon became evi- 
dent that her lungs were attacked, her fits of cough- 
ing were accompanied by hemorrhage, and the doc- 
tors pronounced her to be in a decline. We saw but 
little of my mother that spring and summer, as she 
was constantly in Wiesbaden, the invalid always 
asking for her, and liking no other nursing so well 
as hers. Already early in July it was announced 
that there was no longer any hope, and my mother, 
whose perpetual dread it was that my naturally im- 
pulsive nature should gain more and more the upper 
hand, counting on the solemn impressions of such 
a scene to sober me for life, resolved to take me with 
her to the death-bed. 

Such an experience was indeed well calculated to 
damp a child's high spirits, and it remains with me 
as the most vivid recollection of my youth. For 
accustomed as I was to sickness and suffering, death 
I was yet unacquainted with. And now, all at once, 
I was to see someone die! But what a radiant, 
blissful death that was! The evening before she 
passed away, grandmamma seemed positively trans- 
figured. A rapturous expression was on her face, 
as she lay there stretching out her arms towards 
something that was seen by her alone, and repeating 
with marked emphasis the words "at four o'clock!" 
For many hours we all sat or knelt round her bed, 
until at last my mother sent me away to get a little 
sleep, promising to have me awakened when the end 

48 



GRANDMAMMA 



approached. I stopped to press my lips once more 
to the dear wasted hand, and at that grandmamma 
opened her eyes, looked at me and smiled, and her 
lips shaped themselves as if to give me a kiss. My 
eyes were rnnning over with tears, as I stooped over 
her for that last kiss. Even then, almost in her 
death-agony, her natural sweetness and affability 
never deserted her for a moment, and as with her 
failing eyes she caught sight of a doctor who had 
been summoned in haste, with one of her own pecu- 
liarly graceful gestures she pointed to a chair by 
her bedside, begging him to be seated. 

Meanwhile, in the next room, still, in my little 
dressing-gown I had thrown myself on a camp- 
bedstead that had been placed there for anyone able 
to snatch a few minutes' rest, and had fallen into 
an uneasy sleep, until a little before four o'clock 
my mother woke me, everyone thinking that the 
end must come then. 

In these few hours I found that a great change 
had taken place, — still the same hot flush on the 
cheeks, but the eyes sunken, and without the slight- 
est look of consciousness, and her breath coming in 
short quick gasps. I trembled all over. Through 
the door open into the boudoir beyond, I could see 
the old clergyman, Pastor Dilthey, who had officiated 
both at my mother's confirmation and at her mar- 
riage, sitting there in his full canonicals, grave and 
imposing, waiting to perform the last solemn rites. 
The room was left in darkness, only the first rays 
of morning stealing in through the closed shutters 
flickered strangely here and there, and fell over the 
4 49 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



old pastor's silvery hair, making his pale serious 
face look still more grave and pale. I watched him 
from the doorway, but felt in too great awe to go up 
and speak to him, so I stole up quietly to grand- 
mamma's writing-table, and looked once more at all 
the little articles standing on it, with which I had 
sometimes been allowed to play and all of which 
had the scent of the filagree vinaigrettes she kept 
among them. The hands of the little clock there 
already pointed to four, — when she suddenly began 
to breathe a little more freely, and the danger 
seemed no longer so imminent. We knelt round her 
bed, without a sound, except when one or other of 
her daughters, unable to control her sobs, was im- 
mediately called to order by my mother lest the 
calm of the death-bed should be disturbed. 

And so the hours passed. I grew more and more 
tired. Then, between one and two o'clock that 
afternoon, a terrific storm broke out. The open 
windows banged to and fro, the rain splashed and 
dashed against the window-panes, the thunder 
rolled, and grandmamma's breath came in fitful 
gasps. She could no longer swallow even the few 
drops of water that were held to her lips. So the 
storm raged on, and her breathing grew more pain- 
ful and irregular, and I knelt on like the rest at her 
bedside, when suddenly I knew no more, all grew 
dark before my eyes, and I had fallen forward, my 
dark curls streaming across my mother's feet, fast 
asleep. Or was it perhaps in reality faintness that 
had overcome me, and that then passed into the 
sound sleep of childhood, worn out as I was with the 

50 



GRANDMAMMA 



unwonted hours of watching and fasting I had gone 
through? It is very possible, for I had eaten noth- 
ing for the last four-and-twenty hours, and was 
exhausted with kneeling and with all the tears I 
had shed. When I came to myself again, the storm 
had spent its fury, the flashes of lightning were less 
frequent, the thunder only went on rumbling in the 
distance, the rain had stopped, and a ray of sun- 
shine streamed into the room and right across the 
face of the dying woman, whose breathing was still 
slower and feebler. At last, as the big belfry clocks 
in the town began to strike the hour, one after the 
other, there were still longer pauses between the 
gasps for breath. I saw then for the first time what 
it means to smile from sheer despair. Good old 
Dr. Fritze, who had attended grandmamma all her 
life, and who literally idolised her, had seated him- 
self on the bed and lifted her in his arms, to try to 
ease her breathing a little. When the clocks began 
striking, he smiled, and said aloud, — "one more 
breath!" and then, — "one more!" And again: — 
1 1 and just one more ! ' ' And after that there was a 
deathly silence, whilst the old Black Forest clock 
above her head struck four. Her daughters hid 
their faces in the pillows to stifle their sobs, and the 
deep rich voice of the old pastor rang out in words 
of solemn prayer. Then the head of the family, the 
Duke of Nassau, rose to his feet, and stretching 
out his hand across the sleeping form, called on his 
brother and sisters to unite with him in the vow, 
that her dear memory should hold them together in 
all things henceforth, just as if she were still living 

51 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



in their midst. Their tears fell fast over the still 
white face, so unmoved in death, as they joined hands 
with him in answer to his appeal. The one daughter, 
the Princess of Waldeck, was so beside herself with 
grief, that it took all my mother's firmness to enable 
her to regain her composure, the latter being indeed 
a tower of strength to them all in that sad hour. 

After a little while we were all sent away, in 
order that the laying out of the corpse might be 
attended to, before too great rigidity should have 
set in, and once more I became sadly conscious of the 
shortcomings of human nature, at least in my own 
person, as the pangs of hunger began to assert them- 
selves, after this prolonged fast. It was perhaps 
not very astonishing, considering my youth, that I 
should have been able to enjoy even at such a 
moment the repast which was now provided for me, 
but I felt terribly ashamed of myself, above all that 
the servants waiting on me should see me eating with 
such hearty appetite, and I wondered if everyone 
thought me very hard-hearted! Had I not fallen 
asleep just at the wrong moment too? I felt thor- 
oughly small, and there was no one to comfort me 
with the assurance that it was not my heart that was 
in fault, but only my poor little body demanding its 
rights ! 

In the one drawing-room, that which was known 
as the "sisters '-room,' ? as it had specially belonged 
to my aunts, three beds were put up, and here my 
mother and I were to sleep together with her young- 
est sister, for the house was so overfull that proper 
accommodation was wanting, the dining-room, the 

52 



GRANDMAMMA 



largest room of all, being converted into a chapelle 
ardente. Of this last detail I knew nothing. I had 
been so simply brought up, the ways of a Conrt were 
unfamiliar and even qnite distasteful to me. Next 
morning I was up betimes, and without disturbing- 
anyone I crept out into the garden, taking with me 
the first tablecloth that came to hand, and this I filled 
with all the roses I could gather, fresh fragrant 
roses, still wet with dew, to take to grandmamma. 
Without a word to anyone, I made my way upstairs 
very softly to her room, and began placing my roses 
in a big garland round her. I did not feel at all 
afraid at first, but in course of time the intense 
stillness began to affect me, so that I was quite glad 
when Fraulein von Preen, grandmamma's lady-in- 
waiting, came into the room with one or two of the 
maids and helped me to arrange my flowers. The 
day passed slowly, chiefly taken up with giving 
orders for mourning, bonnets of the correct shape, 
with the point coming very low down on the fore- 
head, and long crape veils, falling right over the 
heavy folds of the black woollen dresses with their 
long trains. I too was to have a little black woollen 
dress, and that made me sadder than ever, it seemed 
to me such a melancholy garb. The following morn- 
ing I again got up as early as possible, feeling rather 
impatient to see my aunt go on sleeping so soundly, 
for she was never an early riser, and had not yet 
made up for the rest she had lost. But I hardly 
knew what to do with myself, having been told that I 
could not go to see grandmamma to-day, and I 
turned and twisted about restlessly in the room. 

53 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



All at once I caught sight of a sheet of grand- 
mamma's own special pale green note-paper, with 
something written on it in her hand-writing, lying 
on a table. Young as I was, I quite understood that 
one must not read every paper one sees lying about, 
my mother never even opened a letter addressed to 
me, so as to set me the example of the respect due 
to private correspondence. But this paper lay 
spread wide open for every one to see, and was 
evidently not a letter at all, that much was clear to 
me, notwithstanding my short-sight. It was cer- 
tainly allowable, I told myself, to look at dear grand- 
mamma's hand-writing once more. It turned out to 
be a translation of some English verses, — a poem of 
Longfellow's, which is known to everybody, but with 
which I first made acquaintance then, through the 
medium of grandmamma's German version. The 
first verse of the original runs : 

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary, 
It rains, and the rain is never weary; 
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, 
And at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

Quick as thought I had made a copy of the verses, 
and leaving the paper where I found it, I was read- 
ing my treasure through once more when my aunt 
awoke and called her sister, and it was only then 
that I noticed that my mother must have been up and 
dressed before me, as she had already left the room. 
Thrusting my beloved verses back in my pocket, 
I softly approached my aunt's bedside, wishing her 
good morning.— " Good morning !" she replied, con- 

54 



GRANDMAMMA 



turning with a sigh: — 4 ' to-day is my birthday !" — 
' ' Oh ! ' ' I said, and could find no more to say. I felt 
perfectly well how unkind and unfeeling I must 
appear, I quite understood how tragic it was for her, 
to celebrate her eighteenth birthday beside her 
mother's open coffin, I was simply choking with 
affection and sympathy — but I could not get out a 
single word to express what I felt. And what in- 
deed could a small child say to help and console! 
Myself I had just found great comfort in those beau- 
tiful verses, and I longed to show her these, but was 
not quite sure whether I had done right in copying 
them, and so my poor aunt and I just went on look- 
ing at one another in silence, when fortunately my 
mother came in, breaking the ice with the warmth 
of her presence, and, finding exactly the right thing 
to say, in the fewest words possible, as she folded 
her sister in her arms. I withdrew, very quietly, 
leaving them together, and that was perhaps the only 
sensible thing that I did, or could have done, under 
the circumstances. 

The next few days were the most gloomy and 
depressing of all, with the lying in state in the 
chapelle ardente, in which grandmamma seemed to 
have become something so distant and removed from 
me, all shrouded in lace, and with tapers burning 
round her, high up and scarcely to be seen from the 
steps of the catafalque on which we could only kneel 
and pray — no longer my own dear grandmamma 
round whom I might strew roses, but something cold 
and strange, and far-off, at which crowds came to 
stare — a mere show ! I wanted to think of her still 

55 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



as I had seen her the evening before her death, 
glorified, as it were, and already belonging to that 
other and better world, on the threshold of which she 
stood; it was on this picture my thoughts loved to 
dwell, and on the memory of her last kiss, and of the 
magnificent storm which raged while she was draw- 
ing her last breath. Everything that had come 
afterwards was dull and commonplace in compari- 
son — a pageant, out of which the loftiness and sanc- 
tification had departed ! Out of this chilling atmos- 
phere I withdrew then more and more into myself, 
cherishing these sacred recollections, and above all 
musing over my priceless treasure, the poem I had 
discovered, and which seemed to me like a message 
from grandmamma herself ; so much must the words 
have meant to her, I fancied I could hear her voice 
speaking through them; and so little heed did I in 
consequence pay to what was going on around me, 
that of the actual funeral ceremonies, at some por- 
tion of which in any case I must have been present, 
I have no remembrance at all. I must have passed 
through it all as if in a dream, and there is alto- 
gether a blank in my mind concerning it. 

Aunt Sophie, the youngest sister of my mother, 
returned with us to Monrepos, and took up her abode 
with us for a time. She became betrothed, still in 
her deep mourning, to the Prince of Sweden, who 
suddenly made his appearance in our midst, I could 
not at all make out why. And I was just as much 
puzzled to know why, one evening when my aunt and 
Fraulein von Bunsen were playing Haydn's " Seven 
Words from the Cross,' ' as arranged by Neukomm 

56 



GRANDMAMMA 



for piano and organ, the prince should so persist- 
ently have kept his eyes fixed on my annt, who was 
only playing the piano, whilst as everyone knows, 
the organ, which Fraulein von Bnnsen was playing, 
is the far more important part ! He, however, never 
took his gaze off my aunt, who certainly looked very 
interesting with her well cut profile thrown up by 
the long black veil. Later on I understood a little 
better what it meant, after I had heard him sing 
"Adelaide" to my aunt's accompaniment, with all 
the power of his fine tenor voice, and with a fervour 
of expression which I have never heard since. 

Life seemed to go on again then just as before, 
only dear grandmamma's place was empty. I re- 
member too, being present when the question of her 
tombstone was being discussed. It had been her 
especial desire, not to be put inside a vault, but to be 
buried under the open sky, and it seemed to me that 
it was a very poor way of carrying out her wish, 
if after all a great heavy stone monument were to be 
raised above her, on which no flowers could ever 
grow, nor the sunshine and the rains of heaven pene- 
trate it. Only of course my opinion was not asked, 
and I kept it to myself, not at all convinced by the 
explanation given, that the grave, if left open to the 
sky, and not covered by any sort of tombstone, would 
in course of time look very neglected and uncared 
for. What a much better plan it were, to keep the 
houses, or at any rate the rooms, which people have 
lived in, sacred to their memory, by leaving them 
just as they were when they inhabited them, filled 
with the spirit of the past! That would be a true 

57 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



and living monument, and would speak with far 
greater eloquence than all the epitaphs and inscrip- 
tions, so soon effaced and forgotten. 

With regard to myself, my mother had certainly 
accomplished the purpose she had in view, perhaps 
even more fully than she had intended, my natural 
tendency to melancholy, which seldom showed itself 
on the surface, being fostered and encouraged by 
events of such gravity. The poetic impulse grew 
stronger, but was kept just as secret as all the rest 
of my inner life. I was always writing verses, try- 
ing my hand even at a novel, and now to all the old 
ideals stirring confusedly within me, new visions 
from without came flashing across my brain, sug- 
gested by the scenes of death and mourning I had 
just passed through. I saw again the dimly lighted 
chamber, the first rays of dawn stealing through 
upon the silvery hair and motionless form of the old 
pastor, and playing over all the inanimate objects, 
that seemed to take no part in what was going on. 
And yet — had not her own little clock stood still at 
the hour of four? That then had known and under- 
stood! But I told no one my impressions and sen- 
sations, my deepest and strongest feelings I had 
ever been accustomed to keep to myself, it being 
impossible to me to overcome the reserve that, un- 
fortunately for me, accompanied so highly-strung 
and impulsive a temperament. The effort to unlock 
my soul would have cost me too much, and I felt in- 
stinctively that to impart its tumult, even had I been 
able to do so, would have been by no means a wel- 
come proceeding to those around me. It was all too 

58 



GRANDMAMMA 

strong, too wild, too violent. So I shut myself up 
as before, and went on living in a world of my own, 
very much more true and real, it seemed to me, than 
the outer world, in which most of my fellow-creat- 
ures were content to live. 

Before the year was over, my father J s mother was 
also dead. But I had never known her, — her mind 
had been affected for many years, and none of us 
ever saw her. So that I could not mourn for her, 
as for the grandmamma I had known and loved, 
and it was to the latter my thoughts flew back once 
more, as I knelt beside the coffin of her who had 
once ruled, as wife and mother, in the home to which 
she now only returned for her last long slumber. 
It was for her I wept again, rather than for this 
unknown grandmother, sorrow for whom was also 
somewhat crushed by the funeral pomp and cere- 
mony. It left me merely a little sadder and more 
thoughtful than before, as having had yet another 
lesson in the vanity of all earthly things. 



CHAPTER m 



ERNST MORITZ ARNDT 

A more fiery soul than that of Ernst Moritz Arndt 
can surely never have lived upon this earth. He 
must have been fully eighty years old at the time 
when I knew him, but age seemed to count for noth- 
ing with him. His eye was as bright, his voice as 
clear and ringing, his gait as quick and elastic as 
had he still been in the prime of life, and the most 
impassioned speech from youthful lips would have 
seemed tame and cold beside the lava-flood of elo- 
quence that poured forth inexhaustibly from his 
kindly and expressive, although perfectly toothless 
mouth. The loss of his teeth was indeed the only 
real sign of age Arndt bore on his person, and it 
was apparently a matter of so little moment to him, 
that I have often wondered since, whether our modern 
practice of repairing by artificial means the ravages 
of time, be after all so unquestionable an advantage 
as some would pretend. The mouth which nature 
alone has moulded year by year seems to me to re- 
tain in any case much more character and expression 
than that which has been fitted out and shaped anew 
by the dentist's skill. However that may be, it is 
certain that Arndt at all events felt not in the least 
inconvenienced by the loss, nor did it detract from 
our pleasure in listening to him. 

It was during our stay in Bonn, whither we had 
migrated in order to be near a celebrated doctor, 

60 



ERNST MORITZ ARNDT 



that we saw the venerable poet so constantly. Two 
years of my childhood were spent in the charming 
little University town, in the hope that my younger 
brother, an invalid from his birth, and my mother, 
whose health then gave mnch cause for anxiety, 
might both of them derive great and lasting benefit 
from the treatment of the great specialist. And if 
these hopes were doomed to disappointment, — and 
it seemed indeed, as an old friend of our family 
afterwards remarked, as if the very best efforts of 
medical skill must here for ever prove unavailing, — 
there were on the other hand certain compensations 
attendant on our stay, in the shape of the opportuni- 
ties for intercourse it afforded with so many highly 
interesting people. And first and foremost among 
these Arndt must be reckoned, as the most constant 
and ever welcome guest. His visits were indeed of 
quite unconventional length, for he would often stay 
for hours at a time, now reading aloud to my 
mother one of her favourite Swedish books, now 
relating to us children some thrilling episode of the 
War of Liberation, in which he had played so con- 
spicuous a part. 

He was of such exuberant vivacity, that he talked 
till he literally foamed at the mouth, and gesticu- 
lated wildly, sometimes enforcing what he said by a 
little friendly tap on my mother's shoulder, that 
made her shrink, — for in her weak condition, the 
merest touch sufficed to bring on one of her nervous 
attacks, — sometimes contenting himself with press- 
ing a heavy finger on my forehead, as I sat on his 
knee, and gazed up in his face. I was all eyes and 

61 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



ears, drinking in his words with that undivided 
attention that only children can give, and myself all 
on fire with excitement. For he talked and talked, 
working himself np into as burning a fever as if the 
French had still been in the land, and Germany 
smarting under a foreign yoke, and poor Queen 
Louisa still fretting her heart out for her country's 
misfortunes ! It was all so real, so present for him ! 
He lived back in those days once more, and fought 
the old campaigns over again, and was for ever con- 
triving some new plan for his country's salvation 
and welfare, — now inventing some marvellous new 
weapon that should rid her of all her foes, — now 
devising some infallible means of making her strong 
and united ! For the dream of German Unity never 
abandoned him, and there was nothing made him so 
wild with indignation as for anyone to dare to assert 
that Germany was a mere geographical expression. 

Small wonder that we children listened with beat- 
ing hearts and cheeks aflame to the story of the stir- 
ring times, still so near to the elder generation, mem- 
bers of our family too being yet alive, great-aunts 
and great-uncles among us to that day, who had also 
lived through them, and the very walls of our castle 
at Neuwied still bearing the marks of the bullets, 
fired against it by the soldiers of General Hoche. 
But better still, Arndt would often recite to us some 
of his own poems, both from the earlier ones, written 
during the war, and from those of more recent date, 
all of them glowing with the same patriotic fervour, 
and kindling a like enthusiasm in the minds of his 
youthful hearers. 

62 



ERNST MORITZ ARNDT 



There were, however, fortunately other influences 
at work, to combat what might have been a some- 
what one-sided teaching, and prevent us from believ- 
ing that our old friend possessed a monopoly of 
patriotism. In the first place, there was Monsieur 
Monnard, the very interesting French professor at 
the university, whose refinement of speech and quiet 
manner were in their way quite as effective and con- 
vincing as Arndt's stormy vehemence, and lent a 
peculiar charm to his conversation. To his 
daughter too, a most charming creature, I owed a 
debt of gratitude for one of the chief joys of my 
childhood, that delightful book ' 1 Augustin, ' ' in 
which she had told the story, as I afterwards heard, 
of her own child whom she had lost. When I made 
her acquaintance, I had read her book a hundred 
times, and almost knew it by heart! And besides 
these two, whose love of their country was none the 
less intense, I felt, for being very calmly expressed, 
there was another frequent guest in whom that senti- 
ment was evidently the ruling passion and guiding 
principle in life. The last-mentioned, Demetrius 
Stourdza, was a slight, spare, very dark young man, 
who had come from a far-off, and to me then quite 
unknown country, to pursue his studies at the uni- 
versity, whilst his two younger brothers followed the 
classes at the gymnasium or public school. When 
he spoke of his home on the distant Moldau, of his 
oppressed, unhappy country, it was in terms of the 
same ardent affection, the same irrepressible emo- 
tion, as were Arndt's in telling the story of Ger- 
many's wrongs; only the ills of which the young 

63 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

student had to tell dated much further back and 
were so deeply rooted as to appear well nigh incur- 
able. Not only had his country groaned for centu- 
ries under foreign tyranny, but she was also torn by 
internal feuds, split into two provinces, Moldavia 
and Wallachia, constantly warring one with the 
other, so that there seemed little prospect of national 
independence being attained. He spoke with great 
enthusiasm of his mother-tongue, the beautiful Rou- 
manian language, common heritage of the two prov- 
inces, and I remember how, at my mother's request, 
he one day spoke a few words of Roumanian, to let 
us hear the soft melodious sounds. Years after, on 
my first arrival in Roumania, when the train drew 
up in the station at Bucarest, the first person to step 
forward from the crowd waiting on the platform to 
greet me, was Demetrius Stourdza, my old acquaint- 
ance in his student days at Bonn, afterwards to be 
more than once Prime Minister. I certainly, at the 
time I am speaking of, little foresaw this second 
meeting, but what did strike me then was the 
strength and depth of this stranger's attachment to 
his country, perhaps all the stronger and deeper 
for being coupled with such hopelessness. All these 
things made a profound impression on my childish 
mind, and gave me much to reflect upon. For even 
then I was already dreaming, — wild heedless crea- 
ture as I was generally supposed to be, and as I had 
come to consider myself. So strong a hold had this 
belief taken of me, that nothing could well equal my 
surprise, when some forty years later, meeting one 
of the companions of these early days, and asking 

64 



ERNST MORITZ ARNDT 



her to tell me how I had appeared to her then, she 
replied without hesitation, — "Most terribly seri- 
ous!" For the moment I was perfectly amazed; 
but, looking back once more on the past, and taking 
into account the lively recollection I have retained, 
not merely of scenes and events, but also of persons 
whom I met, and above all of the conversations that 
went on around me from my eighth to my tenth year, 
the conviction is forced upon me, that I must have 
brought to bear on them very close attention, and an 
amount of discernment hardly compatible with the 
character of careless high spirits with which I was 
usually credited. 

To return to Arndt: it was only natural that, 
whatever might arrest our attention elsewhere, his 
personality remained the dominating one and was 
invested for us with a sort of halo. Had he not him- 
self taken part in the deeds he told us of, and known 
and immortalised the heroes by whom the best of 
these were accomplished, — in songs we knew by heart 
and sang almost before we could speak plainly? At 
that time, I had never heard of the tragedy which 
darkened his domestic life, — that he had known little 
happiness in his own family, and had on one occa- 
sion treated one of his sons with such harshness, 
that the young man went out and threw himself 
into the Ehine, his body being afterwards sought 
for in vain for three days and nights by the dis- 
tracted parents. Of all this I knew nothing then, — 
I saw in him only the patriot, the poet, the magician 
who could work such marvels with words. It was 
a revelation to me, this of the wondrous power of 
5 65 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



language, and of all the lessons I unconsciously 
learned at that early age it was perhaps the one that 
I most readily and thoroughly assimilated, being the 
most congenial to my own nature, and corresponding 
to its potential needs. It is a pity that children are 
generally so reserved and reticent, for a child of 
enquiring mind would learn much more, could it but 
impart its own thoughts and 'enquire about the 
things that puzzle it. But a sensitive child broods 
in silence over its own imaginings, very often per- 
plexed by some very simple matter which a word 
might explain. And who indeed could have guessed 
that these were the first stirrings of the poetic tem- 
perament within me, called into life by the person- 
ality of the aged poet, towards whom I felt myself 
irresistibly drawn? Poetry was certainly my native 
element. I could already recite Schiller's Diver and 
the Fight with the Dragon, and the other principal 
ballads ; I learnt by heart with the greatest facility, 
and to hear a short poem read over once was enough, 
I could repeat it without a mistake. It was so much 
inflammable material, one might say, collected within 
my brain, and awaiting but the approach of the 
lighted match to ignite, and kindle to a blaze. 

I wish I could remember some of Arndt's own 
words to quote here. But of that verbal brilliancy, 
that inexhaustible flow of speech, it is necessarily the 
general impression that remains, rather than the 
exact form in which it was cast, and I would not 
dare attempt to render this. Some of his more 
humorous sayings, however, I have preserved text- 
ually, and need therefore not hesitate to give the 

66 



ERNST MORITZ ARNDT 



following specimen:— " When I write to the King," 
he one day explained, — "I do not trouble my head 
with all that rubbish of humbly and dutifully, and 
most gracious this and most gracious that, but sim- 
ply say Your Majesty, and then plain you and your, 
and afterwards perhaps just one more Majesty to 
wind up with — for all the absurd rigmarole of Court 
lingo is more than I can stand.'' 

To the very last Arndt was busy and eager, as I 
have said, for the cause of German Unity, and we 
were all heart and soul with him in wishing well to 
that cause. The year 1848 had not long gone past, 
with all its unrest, and with the high hopes and daz- 
zling day dreams it had brought, and from one of 
those dreams we had hardly awakened yet, — that 
which we dreamt as we saw folk going about wearing 
their black, red and yellow cockades, as if by so doing 
they could bring all Germany under one flag and 
place the Imperial crown on the head of the Prussian 
king. From the balcony at Heidelberg my little 
four-year-old brother had helped to give the word of 
command to the volunteers mustered in the square 
below, but all that excitement had died out again, 
and things had drifted back into the old well-worn 
grooves. The times were not yet ripe, and much 
water would have to flow down the Ehine to the sea, 
ere that fair dream should become reality. Clever 
and interesting as the Prussian king undoubtedly 
was, it was not in his person that the traditions of 
the German Empire were to be revived ; that was to 
be the work of another, of whom at that period no 
one thought, — the exile who was then looking down 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



sadly and wearily from his window upon a London 
street. 

To conclude this brief sketch of Arndt, I can 
hardly do better than transcribe the verses which 
about this time he wrote in my mother 's album : 

In God's own image thou wast made; 
Of Heaven's pure light an emanation, 
That down to this dark world has strayed. 
'Tis this Heaven's truest revelation. 

Nor for thyself alone was lent 
Yon ray that lights thy path thus kindly; 
Each as the other's guide was meant, 
Here where all grope and struggle blindly. 

Still to thy dream of Heaven hold fast! 
For then, whatever ills assail thee, 
Though every earthly joy fly past, 
This one sure hope shall never fail thee ! 

Bonn, 23. of the May-month, 1853. 



CHAPTER IV 

BERNAYS 

Anothek much valued friend of ours was the 
great scholar Bernays. He also was a constant vis- 
itor whilst we were living in Bonn, often sitting for 
hours beside my mother's invalid couch, talking to 
her. But he never partook of a meal in our house, 
and my childish mind was much troubled at this. 
His explanation was, that being a Jew, he must 
avoid being drawn into anything contrary to the 
customs and observances of his race. For his con- 
scientious scruples, no less than for his profound 
learning and the breadth and liberality of his views, 
my parents entertained the very highest respect and 
admiration, my mother in particular never wearying 
of hearing him discourse on one or other of those 
deeper problems that will forever occupy men's 
minds, rejoicing meanwhile to feel her own store of 
knowledge increase and her intelligence expand in 
this congenial atmosphere. 

Bernays was not merely well-read in the Jewish 
Scriptures, but seemed to know the New Testament 
also better than we did ourselves, and his ideas on 
religious topics were always striking and impres- 
sive. I did not then know of his intimate friendship 
with Ernest Renan, and of the correspondence they 
kept up. I was indeed at this time considered much 
too young to be admitted even as a listener to the 
long and serious conversations — of such absorbing 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



interest to both my parents — that took place between 
them and Bernays. The latter, I have since heard, 
felt it a great hardship that he should be excluded, 
on account of his nationality, from holding a profes- 
sorship at the University, and this in spite of his 
being in his own line probably the finest scholar 
Bonn has ever produced. As for my own childish 
impression, I confess that it was chiefly one of awe 
at the solemn, rather severe-looking personage, 
whose eyes seemed to wear an expression of such 
unchanging gravity behind their dark spectacles. 
He was in point of fact much too short-sighted to see 
other faces clearly, and thus no ray of recognition 
ever lit up his own. 

It was on account of his short-sightedness, and the 
nervousness that arose from it, that my mother 
always insisted on sending a manservant, carrying 
a lantern, to accompany Bernays home, whenever he 
had spent the evening with us. For the streets of 
Bonn were by no means brilliantly illuminated in 
those days. Whenever full moon was down in the 
almanack, then very few street lamps were lit. But 
certainly the moonlight nights were of exceptional 
loveliness. Our villa, which was called the Vinea 
Domini, had a beautiful big garden, sloping right 
down to the banks of the Ehine. Many and many 
an evening was spent on the terrace in the moon- 
shine, watching the boats glide past, and it was 
hardly ever before the last steamer came puffing 
along, that the party broke up. "Here comes the 
late boat!" was a sort of standing joke, used as a 
signal for departure by more intimate friends, to- 

70 



BERNAYS 



wards guests inclined to tarry perhaps all too long. 
On such occasions, when the conversation threatened 
to spin itself out into the small hours of the night, 
and my mother began to look tired out, someone — 
and more often than not it was Prince Keuss, the 
future ambassador, then young and full of high 
spirits — would call out : ' ' Here is the evening boat, ' ' 
and the assembly would at last disperse. To the 
minds of all who took part in those pleasant gather- 
ings, the remembrance of the pretty house, with 
its sweet garden, must have been endeared. But 
they alas! no longer exist; have long since disap- 
peared, and the ground has been cut up and built 
over. 

I was too young at that time, as I have said, to be 
allowed to hear much of the discussions that went 
on, and I have often thought since that it was a pity 
that I should have missed the chance of profiting 
by them. For, child as I was, I was studious and 
thoughtful beyond my years, and being of a natur- 
ally devout temperament, which was fostered by 
our pious training, I would have given much to hear 
my parents' learned friend, whom they held in such 
unbounded veneration, expound his views on relig- 
ion. It would have been worth still more, I have 
often said to myself since, to hear one so remark- 
able discourse, could they but have been brought 
together, with those kindred spirits, Kenan and Tol- 
stoi ! As it was, of the rich spiritual feast set forth 
in such profusion, it was but a few crumbs that fell 
to my share. I cannot therefore profess to quote 
from memory Bernays's precise words on any occa- 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



sion, and should be the more diffident of the attempt, 
since he is no longer in this world, to correct any 
mistake I might inadvertently make. But very 
many of his arguments and inferences remained 
with me, together with a very clear apprehension 
of their general scope and tendency. Of the dog- 
matic value attaching to these, it is not for me to 
decide ; but it would have been impossible for me, in 
chronicling these memories of my childhood, not to 
give full prominence to the striking personality 
whose teaching exercised so unbounded an influence 
over the minds of my parents, whilst in my own its 
mere echoes may possibly have aroused the first in- 
terest in the philosophy of religion, which I have 
retained throughout my life. For long years his 
opinion was constantly cited in our family circle ; — 
"Bernays said this," or, "Bernays would have 
thought so and so," were phrases of daily recur- 
rence, and carried with them the authority of an 
oracle. 

It was a favourite assertion of Bernays, that the 
Jewish is the only religion which has kept itself free 
from any taint of f etichism ; Christianity, like every 
other religion which is bent on proselytising, having 
been powerless to avoid contamination from the be- 
liefs and practices of heathen nations, among whom 
its first converts were made. Is there not perhaps 
some truth in this contention? Is it not the weak 
point in the armour of every Faith that lays itself 
out for propaganda, that it is insensibly betrayed 
into making concessions, and thereby inevitably in 
the long run falls away from its lofty ideals ! Chris- 

72 



BERN AYS 



tianity, we must own with shame, has lowered its 
standard since the days when its first teachings 
flowed, pure and untarnished, from the lips of its 
Divine Founder. And were we, who call ourselves 
Christians, to measure our thoughts and actions by 
the pattern set before us in the Sermon on the 
Mount, must we not blush at our own short-comings f 
It was certainly by no means incomprehensible to 
me, that our friend should have taken it so ill, when 
his own brother became a Christian. On that point 
I have always had, I own, very much the feeling of 
the Eoumanians, whose dislike to any change of re- 
ligion is so thorough and intense, that they use the 
same expression — "s a' turrit," — i.e., "he has be- 
come a Turk, a Mahomedan," indiscriminately to 
denote any change of faith, whether on the part of 
one becoming a Christian or a Mussulman. Quite 
different in this from their Russian brethren of the 
Orthodox Church, the Roumanians view with abso- 
lute disfavour the action of those who join their 
communion. To them such an act is always simply 
apostasy, and their language possesses no other 
term by which to designate it. In this, as I was 
saying, I am much in sympathy with them. Is it 
not an admission of weakness, to say the least, 
deliberately to abandon the Faith of our Fathers 
and enter another fold? Since all Churches are in 
a sense human institutions, what advantage have 
we in leaving the one in which we were born and 
brought up, only to find that of our choice equally 
fallible and imperfect ! Should we not content our- 
selves with doing our very best, in all honesty and 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



sincerity of purpose, within the community in which 
our lot is cast, striving to raise its aims and purify 
its ordinances, rather than impatiently to fling aside 
fetters that have perhaps become irksome, only by 
so doing to burden ourselves with other and per- 
chance heavier chains, and from which we must no 
longer seek to free ourselves, seeing that they are of 
our own choosing? Is then the outward form under 
which we worship God, of so much importance after 
all? Some form undoubtedly there must be, as long 
as human beings meet together for prayer and 
praise, feeling themselves thereby more fitly dis- 
posed for their orisons and thanksgiving; but let 
us not forget that the essence of all service consists 
in its being performed "in spirit and in truth !" 
The rest matters little. 

In the home that is now mine, Nathan the Wise 
might be welcomed daily, he would find here mem- 
bers of widely differing confessions dwelling to- 
gether in harmony in one family. Catholic, Protes- 
tant and Orthodox, each respects the other's faith, 
and never has the slightest discord arisen. As for 
the children, they have certainly never had occasion 
to feel, that the creed in which they are being 
brought up in any way differs from that of their 
elders. And in our household there is an Israelite 
to be reckoned among our secretaries, and he it is 
who is my most faithful auxiliary in all charitable 
work. So that of religious intolerance or narrow- 
mindedness it can surely never be question among 
us, and I have been able to live on here true to the 
lessons and traditions of my youth. Nor can any 

74 



BERNAYS 



accusation of having recently either sanctioned or 
connived at the so-called persecution of the Jews, 
be equitably brought against the Eoumanian govern- 
ment. What really took place was this. In this 
sparely populated country, in which all industries 
and manufactures are in the hands of foreigners, — 
notably of the Jews, — a succession of bad harvests, 
after causing indescribable suffering in agricultural 
districts, at length made itself felt in the commer- 
cial centres also. There had been no crops, and 
consequently no food for man or beast, no work 
done on the land for years, and there was no money 
forthcoming; as a result trade naturally suffered, 
and to such an extent that numbers of the traders— ? 
not merely Jews, but Catholics and Protestants 
also — left the land. They were not driven away, 
except by the same untoward circumstances that 
pressed so heavily on the whole nation; they emi- 
grated voluntarily from a land which could no 
longer afford them the means of subsistence. As 
long as it was merely the peasantry who were starv- 
ing, all Europe looked on with the greatest indif- 
ference, perhaps even in ignorance of what was 
going on; but directly the consequences of those 
years of famine began to affect the commercial and 
industrial classes, then all Europe was in an uproar. 

If, however, to this last story of persecution an 
emphatic denial may be given, it by no means fol- 
lows that I would condone the cruel treatment to 
which in bygone centuries Jews have constantly been 
subjected, at the hands of their Christian brethren. 
Perhaps those very persecutions have served a little 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



to make them what they are, — so strong, so united, 
so self-reliant. Another source of strength has lain 
in the absence of all missionary zeal that character- 
ises Judaism. Never have its followers either de- 
sired or sought to induce other nations to espouse 
their belief. The hatred therefore with which they 
often inspire these others has less its origin in re- 
ligious fanaticism than in instinctive antagonism 
of race. Eeligious wars have often been but a name 
and a pretext under which the stronger, fundamen- 
tal, racial antagonism has asserted itself, and in this 
case their bitterness has been intensified by the quiet 
tenacity, the unfailing resource, the indomitable 
energy and absolute cohesion of the numerically 
weaker and disadvantageously situated party. No 
nation can enjoy seeing the stranger within its 
gates flourishing to the detriment of the children of 
the soil, and the jealousy, suspicion and dislike 
which the prosperity of the former excites, has per- 
haps not infrequently been in direct ratio to the 
inability of the latter to turn their own natural 
advantages to equally good account. Were it not 
wiser on our part, instead of pursuing senseless 
animosities, to learn from the people we have too 
long despised and perhaps unduly mistrusted, the 
secret of their success, the lesson of courage, endur- 
ance, of steadfast faith in God, which has preserved 
them through all dangers, as living witnesses to His 
power and goodness? 

If to this end we study with renewed attention the 
history of the Jewish race, we find all the qualities 
that constitute their strength concentrated and car- 

76 



BERN AYS 

ried to the highest pitch in the person of one man, 
the wisest and greatest perhaps of whom any nation 
can boast, and to whose almost superhuman talents 
and energies the very survival of his nation must 
be attributed. The debt owed to Moses by his fel- 
low-countrymen can hardly be over-estimated. Law- 
giver and judge, physician and priest, their leader 
in war and peace, where has there ever been the 
monarch who could compare with this marvellously 
gifted individual, founder of a religion, of a Code, 
of a nation, that has victoriously withstood all 
perils, and outlived the mighty empires by which it 
was overthrown and oppressed. Caesar, Charle- 
magne and Haroun-al-Eashid, wise and powerful 
as they may have been, must each yield the palm to 
Moses, for their work has left no trace, the ideals to 
which they devoted their lives are but an empty 
name, whilst the Hebrew, born in servitude, has left 
his mark on the thought, the action, and the relig- 
ion of the whole Gentile world, and made of the 
wretched tribes, whom he led forth out of bondage, 
a nation increasing daily in number and in strength, 
wealthy beyond all others, and rapidly spreading 
over the face of the earth. It would seem indeed as 
if the evils engendered by too great riches and pros- 
perity were the sole danger seriously threatening 
the Jewish race. Already in bygone days it was 
against this rock that they more than once well-nigh 
suffered shipwreck ; and had not the salutary school 
of adversity called them back from their foolish 
pride to saner counsels, humanity might have been 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



the poorer by the loss of these foremost champions 
of monotheism. 

That loss indeed we could ill afford. We are only 
too apt to forget, that it is to this despised race that 
we owe one priceless treasure, the book of books, the 
Bible, in which scarce out of infancy we were taught 
to read, and which remains our chief comfort 
throughout life. In it the highest wisdom stands 
revealed in so noble a form, truth and poetry are 
blended together to such perfect harmony, the result 
is a masterpiece whose like no other literature in 
the whole world can match. Does not the finest 
work of all other great poets sink into insignificance 
beside the sublime utterances of the Hebrew 
prophets? In long dark dreary sleepless nights, I 
know not where such solace for weary souls may be 
found, as in the magnificent imagery, the impas- 
sioned language of Isaiah and Jeremiah. All the 
sorrow and suffering of the human heart since the 
beginning of Time seem to cry aloud with their 
voice, and it were vain to seek help in other books 
of devotion, whilst the words of these grandest 
spirits are there, to speak for us and bring us more 
than earthly consolation. Surely none has ever 
steeped his soul in these writings, and not risen 
from their perusal strengthened and refreshed. We 
might do without all other books, provided only this 
one, the source of life, the Revelation of God to 
man, were left us. For, together with the sublime 
poetry of the Psalms and the prophetic books, what 
wisdom and learning, rules of conduct for all seasons 
and under all circumstances, are stored up here! 

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BERN AYS 



The Jew, who follows the letter of the Law, need 
never be at a loss as to the right course to take ; the 
pathway of duty is clearly marked for him, and 
under whatever vicissitudes of fortune he will have 
in his own Scriptures as sure a guide as was the 
Ark of the Covenant to the footsteps of his fathers. 
As to the historic books of the Old Testament, their 
simplicity and directness are a strong testimony 
in favour of the veracity of the writers ; and I was 
much struck once by the suggestive remark of a Jew 
of high culture, who in discussion with a Christian, 
smilingly retorted: "All I can say is, that I wish 
for you that the history of your nation may one day 
be written with equal honesty, and that you may 
then be able to have it read out aloud for general 
edification in your churches, as we do ours!" 

How comes it that by no other people has the 
attempt been made! Is it that we instinctively feel 
that in the Hebrew Scriptures the history of man- 
kind has been told once and for all, — that for this, 
as for all other needs, the Bible may suffice? Other- 
wise, might not Christ Himself have wended His 
way to Persia, India or China, to bring to one or 
other of those nations the Gospel of peace and good- 
will, framed in accordance with their own sacred 
books? The fact is certainly not without signifi- 
cance. For, maintain as we may that the men of 
greatest genius belong to no special age or country, 
that Dante, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Michelangelo 
and Goethe are the common property of mankind, it 
is all the same of no trivial import, that just this 
nation, and no other, should have been selected in 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



each case for the honour of bringing them forth. 
And where else, save among a people cast down from 
its former high estate, conquered, humiliated and 
oppressed, could the apotheosis of Suffering be so 
fitly preached, the message of Hope be brought to 
the poor and humble, and the erring be led back 
to the fold 1 Alas ! that in a proud and vain-glorious 
spirit, expecting the promised Messiah in all the 
pomp of earthly power, they should have rejected 
the New Covenant of Mercy by which the uncompro- 
mising severity of the Mosaic dispensation was to be 
attenuated and made perfect! 

I have wandered away somewhat from my theme. 
Perhaps however more in semblance than in reality, 
for as I pursue my own personal reflections, insensi- 
bly much is incorporated with them, which in the old 
days in the Vinea Domini was constantly being dis- 
cussed, and may be said to have vaguely permeated 
the whole atmosphere. Judaism, as we then learned 
to know it, was presented less under an aspect of 
formality and exclusiveness, than as a leaven of 
righteousness, whereby the whole world should be 
regenerated. And possibly, could the other nations 
of the world have been brought to accept the Mosaic 
Code, much misery might have been spared them. 
For the great Lawgiver was wise in advance of his 
age, and many of the preventive measures, for in- 
stance, with which we now seek to ward off sickness 
from our flocks and herds, were foreseen and pre- 
scribed by Moses, long before Bacteriological In- 
stitutes were dreamt of! What profound knowl- 
edge too of human nature, what psychological in- 

80 



BERNAYS 



tuitions were his, who dared to let four generations 
of his weakened and demoralised followers perish, 
and merely serve as stepping-stones to the one des- 
tined to enter the Land of Promise and to settle 
down there in peace and plenty. What indomitable 
strength of purpose, what iron resolution must the 
man have possessed, who could wait thus calmly 
for results ! Well might he feel that he had power 
to bid water flow from the barren rock, nay more, 
that in his righteous indignation he was justified 
in breaking the Tables of the Law, which he had 
just received, since it lay with him to inscribe them 
again. The light that flashed from his eyes was of 
more than mortal brilliancy, it was the sacred fire 
of enthusiasm, the glory that might illumine his face 
alone, who knew himself to be in direct communica- 
tion with the Deity. And well and wisely has that 
kindred soul, Italy's greatest sculptor, portrayed 
him thus, with the aureole of genius and titanic 
strength encircling his brow. Across the centuries 
these two, mystically allied by their superhuman 
energies and achievements, have met and under- 
stood one another, and the real Moses stands forever 
revealed to us in the form and features lent him 
here. It is strength in its highest manifestation 
which Michelangelo has symbolised, and we feel our- 
selves in presence of something that transcends our 
puny human faculties, — that springs from Faith, 
unswerving and unshaken. 

Whence comes it that such faith is no longer 
ours? The fault is our own. God has never yet 
forsaken the least of us. And surely if there be a 
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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



Creator of this marvellous universe, it behooves 
Him to watch over and uphold His creation. That 
much is sure. Every day brings with it a further 
proof of the insufficiency of so-called scientific ex- 
planations of the mystery of Being, every hour some 
highly praised and loudly welcomed discovery sinks 
into oblivion, — how many new theories of the uni- 
verse, how many philosophic systems have I seen 
come and go, how many new prophets and teachers 
arise and pass away, in the course of the half-cen- 
tury I can look back upon ! And if these apodictic 
truths are become naught, these theories discarded, 
these preachers turned into ridicule, well may I feel 
more and more disposed to cling to the simple child- 
like faith of my early years, and hold fast to this 
one sure anchor in a shifting world! Let the 
prophets of old serve as our example and guide. 
They were neither ignorant nor inexperienced, and 
their path was often beset by the Powers of Dark- 
ness, but their simple unquestioning faith brought 
them triumphantly through the greatest perils. Can 
we do better than imitate them! They are our 
spiritual fore-fathers, for our religion sprang forth 
out of Judaism, — we would deny it in vain. 

Would that we resembled them more! Had we 
their faith, we should also have the same freedom 
from superstition that goes hand in hand with it, 
and which these heroes of the Old Testament have 
bequeathed to their natural heirs, to the representa- 
tives of the Jewish people among us now. It may be 
that it is a mere question of race, of constitutional 
temperament, but the fact none the less remains, 

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BERNAYS 



that the Jew possesses a positive aversion to every 
form of superstition — that outcome of weakness and 
helplessness, the last refuge of despairing souls. It 
is not in his nature to give way to despair ; from that 
the dictates of his strong common-sense would in 
a measure guard him, but his absolute security 
comes from his trust in the God of Israel. The love 
of riches, and of the ease and luxury that riches 
bring, this, it cannot be too often said, the besetting 
sin of our age, is the one peril that menaces the 
Jewish race. Not only for their own sake, but for 
the services rendered to humanity, must we not pray 
that the curse be averted, and that they who proudly 
term themselves God's chosen people may avoid the 
gilded snare, and return to the simplicity and mod- 
eration of patriarchal times? 

Someone — I have forgotten who it was — once 
called this earth Vile du Diable, and there are mo- 
ments when it might seem almost to merit the name. 
And yet, quite so bad it surely need not be, if only 
each and all of us strive, in all single-mindedness 
and honesty of purpose, to make it something better 
— not by indulging in foolish vanities and useless 
luxuries — but, by the exercise of forbearance, gen- 
tleness and Christian charity, by the effort to bring 
light into dark places, and to brighten with some ray 
of joy the saddest lot. Were we but to act thus, 
Earth need be no Hell — it lies in our power to make 
it into a Paradise for ourselves and others. The 
Temple of Jerusalem will not be raised from its 
ruins in our days ; there is no Zion on earth for the 
Children of Israel, for the Holy Places once laid 

S3 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

waste may not be restored by human hands until 
long years of expiation have gone by. That truth, 
Judah's best and noblest spirits are the first to 
acknowledge. Something of the ideas of one of 
them I have tried to recall in these pages, which I 
dedicate to his memory. They can give but a vague 
image of the picture in my mind, and the unavailing 
regret comes over me once more, that of the wisdom 
and learning once so near me, I have been able 
to preserve but so dim a recollection. I could envy 
the pupils of Bernays, the students who enjoyed the 
privilege of listening to his exposition of the Greek 
Testament, on which all the wealth of research, the 
critical insight of a true scholar were brought to 
bear. Deeper and further than most of us he surely 
saw! 



CHAPTER V 



TWO OLD RETAINERS 

Faithful servants are no less important in a 
household than the members of the family itself. 
Are we not every moment beholden to them for our 
ease and comfort, so much in the routine* of our 
daily lives depending on them, that we can never be 
grateful enough for the pains they are at to make its 
machinery run well and smoothly. In our family this 
was certainly the case, very many of the old servants 
I remember in my childhood being regarded by us 
as true and valued friends. Talking of this one day 
to one of my cousins, he exclaimed, "Ah, indeed! 
what would ever have become of us poor children, 
had it not been for the dear good old servants ! ' ' 

It was still the fashion in those days, to bring 
children up with great severity, and for poor little 
princes and princesses in particular a Spartan sys- 
tem of education was enforced. Under these cir- 
cumstances it was very often thanks to the servants 
that we escaped the Draconian penalties attached 
to every trifling misdeed ; they were always ready to 
come to our aid in all our troubles, and by their 
adroitness and good-nature helped us out of many of 
our worst scrapes. There were two, in particular, 
who were our personal attendants, and can never be 
dissociated from our family history, accompanying 
us on all our travels, and literally sharing in all our 
joys and sorrows. The one was my father's valet, 

85 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

Masset, a dear old fellow, with a round smiling face 
like a full moon, as good-natured as a big playful 
dog, always ready with some amusing story or 
harmless piece of fun, if he saw that one's spirits 
were low and that one wanted cheering. Lang, on 
the contrary, was a most dignified personage, tall, 
and speaking French beautifully, and with well-cut 
features and a certain stiffness of manner, which we 
felt to be rather imposing. But he was no less de- 
voted to us, and I can recall many an instance of his 
zeal in rendering us service. To give one little ex- 
ample, one day, when in the Isle of Wight, my 
brother's kite, which he was flying, got caught in a 
tree ; it was Lang who in a moment had climbed the 
tree, and set free the kite, almost before the little 
boy had time to distress himself about it. Lang told 
me about it afterwards, and of the bad fall he had 
in coming down from the tree, being really so badly 
shaken that he could not get up for a few minutes, 
though luckily no bones were broken. "And what 
did Wilhelm do?" I asked. "Oh! he ran .off with 
his kite as fast as he could !" was the smiling reply. 
I very much fear that we were often extremely 
thoughtless in the way in which we took for granted 
that we should always find our wishes carried out 
by either of these two trusty allies, and that we did 
not always trouble ourselves to thank them after- 
wards. We have often laughed since to think of 
the artful devices of good old Masset, on one occa- 
sion, when my brother was shut up in his room for 
three weeks on a diet of dry bread and water, taking 
care to cut such very thick slices of bread, that 

86 



TWO OLD RETAINERS 



inside each both butter and meat could be concealed ; 
and this he carried with the most innocent face in 
the world to the poor hungry little prisoner, whose 
sole diversion, meanwhile, consisted in dragging his 
table up to the attic window, so that by placing a 
chair on it he could succeed in climbing out on the 
roof, to shoot at the sparrows with his little cross- 
bow! 

In our house the servants always said "we," in 
speaking of the family; they quite felt that they 
belonged to it, and they were indeed fully justified 
in feeling thus by their devotion to us all. We might 
well be fond of them, though we certainly did not go 
quite so far as my mother, who, as a very smal] 
child was so much attached to the funny little wiz- 
ened old man-servant who was her special attendant, 
that she was heard to say: "Ce cher Rupp! ce cher 
Rupp! je voudrais tant l'embrasser! je Taime beau- 
coup plus que Papa!" But we liked ours quite as 
well as all but our very nearest relations, perhaps 
rather better than some! Masset, as his name 
shows, was of French extraction, descended from 
Huguenot refugees. Another servant had one of 
those names with a Latin termination not infre- 
quently to be found in the Rhineland ; he was called 
Corcilius. Our great-uncle, the traveller, whose de- 
light it was to give nicknames to every one, amused 
himself with twisting and turning the servants' 
names. Thus Lang (Long) became Kurz (Short), 
Schafer (Shepherd) was transformed into Haas 
(Hare), and Corcilius was nicknamed "Gareilaso de 
la Vega. ' ' Many of these good people had been in 

87 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



our service from father to son for several genera- 
tions. One of our game-keepers belonged to a fam- 
ily who had been keepers with us for a couple of 
centuries. Many of our people lived to celebrate 
the jubilee of their fiftieth year in our service. Alas, 
not all ! 

But these two, as I said, Lang and Masset, were 
our special friends, we always felt so safe and sure 
with them, as if no danger could harm us. I should 
never stop, if I began relating everything, the fath- 
erly way in which they took care of us, how often 
they carried us in their arms, all they did to please 
us, when we were quite small. For I was only two 
years old, when, the Ehine being frozen over for 
the first time for many years, they carried us across, 
my little brother and myself, in order that we might 
have a recollection of the unusual occurrence. And 
I do remember it quite distinctly, and many another 
little incident of like nature. I cannot think of 
these without emotion, but there was very much also 
that had its purely comic side. Whilst we were 
staying in Baden, later on, installed in the simplest, 
most modest fashion, with very few servants, some 
one happened one day to ring at the front door, just 
at the moment when Masset was summoned to my 
father. "Let me go," I said; "I will open the 
door ! ' ' But very firmly though gently, I was pushed 
on one side. 1 ' No, dear child, — that cannot be, that 
would never do!" I was eighteen at the time, but 
for both Lang and Masset I always remained a child. 

One amusing little scene, though it has not to do 
with them, but with another old servant, I cannot 

88 



TWO OLD RETAINERS 

help relating here. In my mother 's bedroom hung a 
lamp with a pink shade, giving a very agreeable 
light whenever it chose to burn, but more often than 
not a source of infinite trouble and annoyance. Now- 
a-days with the comfort and convenience of electric- 
ity or even of ordinary petroleum lamps, people 
can little imagine the nuisance of the old-fashioned 
oil-lamps. Two or three times in the course of an 
evening they had to be wound up with a sort of big 
key — and even then they would not burn! All the 
same everyone was agreed as to their being a most 
admirable invention! One evening when my poor 
little invalid brother was being put to bed, as he 
happened for once to be free from pain, my mother 
came away and joined us others at the tea-table. 
For she felt safe in leaving Otto to the care of his 
devoted attendant, a very old man, quite a relic of 
the past, as he had been in my grandmother's ser- 
vice and had been handed on to us. Suddenly the 
door opened, and a wrinkled old face, crowned with 
snow-white hair, peeped in. — "Your Highness, the 
lamp is going out!" My mother jumped up. To 
rush into the other room, pull down the lamp, and 
carry it outside before its feeble light was entirely 
extinguished and had poisoned the atmosphere with 
its fumes — all this was the work of an instant. But 
how we all laughed! till the tears ran down our 
cheeks. And we were laughing still when my mother 
came back to the tea-table, quite astonished at our 
merriment, and asking its cause. To her it had 
seemed just the most natural thing in the world that 

89 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



the old servant should appeal to her, and that she 
should run to his assistance. 

I should like to mention each and every one of 
those whose faithful service was so invaluable to our 
family during the years in which we were tried by 
sickness and suffering; many were admirable in 
their untiring devotion, but the two I have spoken 
of above and beyond all the rest. No words could 
do justice to the tact, the discretion, the unwearied 
patience, with which their duties were fulfilled. 
Never did they utter a word of complaint, on any 
of those long and fatiguing journeys, all the respon- 
sibility of whose arrangements fell on them, and 
which had to be performed under circumstances of 
exceptional difficulty, with my mother in her crippled 
condition, having to be carried in and out of train 
and boat, and my father and brother also helpless 
invalids. To say nothing of the amount of luggage 
that was required for the whole party, nurse and 
lady's maid, tutor, governess, and lady-in-waiting! 
And travelling was by no means so simple and easy 
a matter in those days. But Lang and Masset were 
equal to the circumstances, and managed it all with- 
out a hitch. For our journey from Bonn to Paris 
a whole railway-carriage had to be reserved, so that 
my mother, whose convulsive fits at that time fol- 
lowed one another in swift succession, barely giving 
her time between to recover consciousness, might 
rest undisturbed in the hammock put up for her. 
As for the preceding journey, that from Neuwied to 
Bonn, however difficult it may have been to plan, it 
was so successfully carried out, that to us children 

90 



TWO OLD RETAINERS 

it was all unalloyed enjoyment, like a page out of a 
fairy tale ! As my mother could not stand the shak- 
ing of the steamer, one of the Ehenish coal-barges 
had been chartered, thoroughly cleaned and fitted 
out with mats and awnings, and the deck strewn with 
fresh flowers everywhere, and in order that the little 
journey should not take too long, the barge was 
taken in tow by one of the Ehine-steamers. It was all 
too delightful, so Wilhelm and I thought, this novel 
style of travelling, and everything so amusing — the 
little cabin with its sky-light, and above all the lovely 
little dancing waves in the wake of the steamer. 
We were quite lost in the enjoyment of the hour, and 
had but a faint understanding of the cares weighing 
on the elders of our party, though those were 
brought before us again, when we reached the land- 
ing-stage, and saw our mother carried unconscious 
ashore by Lang and Masset. As in spite of all their 
care and the excellent arrangements made, she had 
lain in convulsions the whole time, they might well 
feel somewhat discouraged at this first step in the 
pilgrimage undertaken in quest of health and solace 
for our invalids. But such grave thoughts cannot 
altogether quell the natural high spirits of youth, 
and I remember the peals of laughter that greeted 
us from my Uncle Nicholas, my mother's youngest 
brother, who was awaiting our arrival in the garden 
of the villa at Bonn, and who declared that he had 
known we were coming long before the boats were 
in sight, our approach having been heralded by the 
smell of ether and chloroform which surrounded us 
like an atmosphere as we glided along ! That strong 

91 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



smell of ether and all the other medicaments used — 
and used in vain — to still those fearful paroxysms of 
pain, this remains for me so indissolubly associated 
with certain scenes and memories of my childhood, 
that as my pen traces these words, the air I breathe 
is pervaded with them once more ! 

I suppose it was the spectacle of suffering con- 
stantly before my eyes, and of the utter inefficacy 
of the remedies prescribed, that gave me, already as 
a child, the conviction of the absolute helplessness 
of doctors in certain cases. Of course I know the 
immense strides medical science has made since 
those days, but after all I wonder if to us it would 
have brought much help ! That which did, however, 
most undeniably contribute to our comfort, and, 
often helped to procure the sufferers some moments ' 
ease and rest, that was the quiet unobtrusive service 
of these two faithful souls. It was only natural that 
Masset's devotion to my father should outweigh 
all else; it literally knew no bounds, and a very 
few months after his master's death, his old servant 
was missing too. He had thrown himself into the 
Ehine, seeking a grave there between the blocks of 
ice with which the river was covered. His body 
was never found. It was only by the print of his 
footsteps in the snow (recognisable by the turning 
in of the toes), that some of the keepers traced him 
down to the riverside, and that we learned his fate. 
He simply could not live without the beloved master, 
to whom he belonged, body and soul. But the shock 
was a terrible one to us all; we mourned him most 
sincerely. Lang remained for years after my 

92 



TWO OLD RETAINERS 



father's death in my mother's service, and was with 
her when she came to see me in Koumania. To the 
end he was the same invaluable, trustworthy ser- 
vant, with such sound judgment that my mother 
often asked his advice, always receiving excellent 
counsel from the clear-headed, much experienced 
old man. 

I must not forget our old coachman, Lindner, who 
at my father's funeral drove the hearse, that none 
but himself might have the honour of performing 
that last service for his master. It was a touching 
sight, so uncontrollable was the grief of the fine old 
man, who, till then, had often been the life and 
soul of every rustic gathering. He it was who was 
generally the principal solo singer at every village 
festival. Unless, indeed, it so happened that I was 
there to take my part ! There was always a sort of 
rivalry between us, as to which had the larger store 
of songs, Lindner or I! And at last, I believe, I 
bore away the palm ; I knew even more than he did ! 

I am proud to think how sad all these good people 
were when I left my old home on my marriage. The 
day when I had to take my leave of the Ladies' 
Nursing Union, I said to Lang as I stepped into the 
carriage: — "Lang, je dois tenir un discours au- 
jourd'hui." And struggling with his emotion, he 
replied: "II doit etre d'autant plus beau, qu'il ne 
sera jamais oublie ! ' ' 

I was missed by all the good country-folk. They 
had always called me "our little princess!" And 
much nicer, prettier names still! The first time I 
came back on a visit after my marriage, through the 

93 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



streets of Neuwied and in the villages round about, 
they ran shouting : — ' ' Our Lisbeth is coming ! Our 
Lisbeth is here again!" 

With every workman and mechanic in the neigh- 
bourhood we had a personal acquaintance, it was as 
if quite peculiar ties of very long standing united 
them to us, for had not their fathers and grand- 
fathers worked for ours, for centuries past? So 
that we felt interested in all that concerned them, 
and ourselves took great pride in the fact, that the 
town of Neuwied had given birth to the celebrated 
wood-carver, Eoentgen, specimens of whose beautiful 
artistic wood-mosaics found their way to all the 
capitals of Europe, and decorate castles and manor- 
houses in every land. 

But it was the book-binder, Lesser, a Moravian, 
who was our special favourite, and every week we 
spent several hours learning his craft of him, till we 
were ourselves able to do some very pretty work. 
I have still books in my possession, which I bound 
myself, fifty years ago, and which are in perfectly 
good condition now. It would be a good thing if 
all children were taught something of the sort, to 
amuse them in their play-hours, instead of letting 
them run wild. There would be no constraint 
needed; it would be merely giving a sensible and 
useful outlet for those energies with which all chil- 
dren are naturally brimming over, and which, mis- 
directed, too often lead them into mischief. We 
were always encouraged to look on at all events, 
whenever there were workmen in the house or 
grounds, and we watched them with the greatest in- 

94 




A Queen at Her Loom 



1 



TWO OLD RETAINERS 



terest, perhaps observing and learning more than 
was thought. And we often talked to them too, so 
that there was really nothing so very much to won- 
der at in those " Songs of the Crafts/ ' which I was 
one day to write, nor in the intimate knowledge of 
each special kind of work which they revealed. Quite 
young we thus learned to use our hands, and they 
were never idle. I could give first-rate sewing les- 
sons; here in Eoumania even I have taught many a 
young girl to embroider. But it was the smith 
above all whom we were never tired of watching 
at his work. Everything pertaining to the forge 
has a special fascination for children — the bellows, 
and the tongs, and the sparks that fly, and the black- 
ened faces — it is all too delightful! One should 
allow children to familiarise themselves with all 
these things, with the beauty and dignity of human 
toil in its every aspect, that they may learn to have 
the right feeling of respect both for the work itself, 
and for the workers. 

Nor can one too early impress on the minds of 
children the debt of gratitude they owe to all those 
whose lives are passed in their service. The young 
can certainly not be expected to realise all the unsel- 
fishness — the utter forgetfulness and disregard of 
self, I should rather say, — which are implied in the 
term of "good and faithful servant." But they can 
be taught to show thoughtfulness and consideration 
towards all with whom they are brought into daily 
contact in these relations. 

Servants of the type of those whom I have tried 
to describe here, are perhaps becoming more and 

95 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



more rare. In any case, where we do come across 
them, we must look upon them as a gift from heaven, 
and it is in heaven, too, that they will have their 
reward. For no earthly master, however thor- 
oughly he may recognise their merit, can ever hope 
to requite or repay such services as theirs. My little 
tribute of words is poor indeed to express the magni- 
tude of such a debt. May they have found their 
reward in a better world, united to the master they 
served so faithfully on earth! 



CHAPTER VI 



FANNY LAVATER 

This angel in human form was a grand-niece of 
the celebrated Swiss philosopher and physiogno- 
mist, Johann Caspar Levater. She was one of a 
family of ten children, the father a member of the 
little French-speaking Protestant community at 
Hanau, and the mother an Englishwoman. 

When Fraulein Lavater came as governess to my 
mother the latter was just six years old, and she 
herself a mere girl of eighteen, with big brown eyes 
and black hair. She was, however, already remark- 
ably well-read in the literature of several languages, 
and this she always declared she owed in a great 
measure to the circumstance that the nonsense called 
children's books did not exist in her childhood, she 
and her brothers and sisters being consequently 
obliged to have recourse for such amusement as they 
sought in reading, to the little collection of the best 
poets and prose-writers, of whose works their 
mother's library was composed. It was thus that 
she had read nearly all Shakespeare's plays when 
she was eight years old. In order to indulge their 
taste for reading, without always having to be 
guided by the choice of their elders, these young 
people had, she told us, discovered a most ingenious 
method of quietly pushing open a panel of the book- 
case, making an aperture just wide enough to intro- 
duce the smallest arm among them, with which sev- 
7 97 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



eral coveted volumes would be fetched down from 
the shelves, and carried off to some safe hiding- 
place, to be brought out and devoured at leisure 
afterwards. 

It was not considered necessary in those days 
to pass a public examination in order to give a proof 
of one's knowledge and abilities, and in the person 
of our ' ' Fraulchen, ' ' as she was affectionately called, 
we had a striking example of the high degree of 
intellectual culture that may be attained by careful 
and intelligent home training and a liberal course 
of general reading. It was in the latter respect, 
above all, that the superiority of independent study 
over the modern cramming system, was in this in- 
stance so abundantly proved. A very few minutes' 
conversation sufficed to show how much more solid 
information was possessed by the quiet little book- 
worm than by many a paragon of the latest methods 
of instruction, however much the latter might be 
advertised by the diploma conferred on her by the 
State. It would almost seem indeed as if no time 
were left for original thought or true mental culture 
in the schemes of our newest educational oracles, 
which apparently aim at reducing all mankind to one 
dull level of mediocrity, forcing all into the self- 
same groove, and trying to make one pattern serve 
for all of us, utterly regardless both of our aptitudes 
and our requirements. I fancy that before long 
there must come a reaction from this unlucky craze, 
and that women at any rate will once more content 
themselves with cultivating their mental powers to 
the utmost, feeling therein a higher satisfaction 



FANNY LAVATER 



than is to be derived from the noisier successes of a 
public examination. 

The home in which Fraulein Lavater had grown 
up, in happy companionship of her brothers and 
sisters, under the guidance of their excellent mother, 
was a comfortable old-fashioned house in Hanau, 
surrounded by a pretty garden of considerable size. 
A genial and healthy spirit animated the whole 
household; the inhabitants of the little town prided 
themselves on the literary and artistic interests 
which they considered had been wafted over to them 
from Frankfort, the Frankfort of Goethe's days; 
they read much, and were fond of meeting together 
for philosophic discussion as well as for amateur 
acting. Those were still the good old honest simple 
times in which living was so cheap that an excellent 
mid-day meal, a slice of a roast joint with vegetables, 
bread and ale, could be had for three kreuzers, and 
in which young girls made their own simple white 
muslin ball-dresses, and embroidered them in col- 
oured wools, wearing the same dress contentedly for 
a dozen dances; and assuredly they looked just as 
pretty and attractive in their modest attire as do 
the young women of the present day in the extrava- 
gant toilettes on which such preposterous sums are 
spent, often bringing ruin on a whole family. That 
so-called period of stagnation at which it is so easy 
to sneer, was in reality but the necessary reaction 
after the too great tension, the strain and stress 
of the War of Liberation, a rest after the storm, in 
which the nation might recuperate its energies, ex- 
hausted by the long conflict. No one talked then of 

99 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



national antipathies or hereditary enmities ; and re- 
ligions strife was also unknown. It was, at all 
events, a peaceful happy existence which people led 
in Hanan, as in many another of the smaller Ger- 
man towns, in which little colonies of French Prot- 
estants, driven ont of their own country by the 
Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes, had settled down. 
There was something so distinctive about these 
worthy people, something that seemed to differen- 
tiate them from their compatriots of the Catholic 
Faith, and that has sometimes set me wondering as 
to what other possible turn affairs might have taken 
for France and for Europe in consequence, had 
Henry IV instead of hearing his first Mass thrown 
the whole weight of his influence into the other side 
of the scale, and brought his countrymen over to his 
religion! However that may be, it is certain that 
the presence of these foreigners gave Hanau some- 
thing cosmopolitan, that the tone of thought and 
feeling which prevailed there was exceptionally lib- 
eral and enlightened. Anglophobia had not yet been 
invented in Germany, on the contrary, one admired 
and imitated everything English, looking up to the 
English nation as the most highly civilised of all. 

Before Fanny Lavater's first day in Biebrich was 
over, her little pupil was already sitting on her knee, 
and telling her: — "Je vous aime deja beaucoup!" 
"Vraiment?" said the young governess, somewhat 
surprised. "Je vous aime deja beaucoup plus que 
ma soeur Therese !" 1 1 Oh ! ' ' and this time there was 
something not merely incredulous, but almost of 
protest in the tone. "C'est que je n'aime pas beau- 

100 



FANNY LAVATER 



coup ma soeur Therese ! ' ' The elder sister had, after 
the mother's death, at once assumed the reins of 
government, and carried it on in so high-handed 
a manner, that she had by no means increased the 
affection in which she was held by her younger 
brothers and sisters. 

The very next evening there was a big reception 
at the Castle, at which Fraulein Lavater, young and 
timid and unknown to everyone, had to appear. As 
she shyly entered the room, nobody made way for 
her, or took any notice of her at all, and my grand- 
father, observing this, strode through the room to 
the place where she stood, offered her his arm, and 
conducted her in this manner through the whole 
assembly, everyone falling back as they passed 
along. Needless to say, that her position in society 
was from that hour assured, and that she never 
required to assert herself in any way. And this 
little anecdote shows my grandfather, then a hand- 
some dignified man in the prime of life, in the light 
in which he must have always appeared to the out- 
side world; towards strangers he was affable, cour- 
teous and charming, reserving his ill-temper for his 
own family, his treatment of his children not allow- 
ing them to see in him aught but a pitiless tyrant. 

For my mother a happy time now began, in which 
she and her dear governess lived quite by themselves 
in the rooms set apart for them in one wing of the 
castle, where they had their own little establish- 
ment — maid, footman and housemaids, all to them- 
selves. Only once or twice a day did the children 
have to appear before their parents, kiss their hands 

101 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



and be dismissed again at once. Pupil and gover- 
ness were all in all to one another, and the former 
had already made np her mind that no circumstances 
which she could control, should ever separate them. 
Fraulein Lavater must come and live with her, the 
little girl explained, when she got married. "But 
if your husband does not want me?" "Alors, je 
dirai ; mon homme, tu peux rester dans ta chambre, 
et moi je resterai dans la mienne! ,, My mother 
kept her word, insisting, to our unspeakable happi- 
ness, on Fraulein Lavater remaining with her for 
weeks, sometimes months together, throughout her 
married life, and afterwards, during her widowhood, 
altogether. 

The saddest day in her whole childhood was that 
in which her dear governess was dismissed. The 
latter had often defended her little pupil when she 
saw her unjustly accused, as not infrequently 
occurred, her otherwise admirable and dearly-loved 
stepmother having the weakness — it was the only 
fault that could be laid to her charge — sometimes to 
try to shield her own children from their father's 
severity, at the expense of the others. And Frau- 
lein Lavater 's zealous efforts to exculpate the poor 
child, on an occasion when she knew her to be the 
victim of a most cruel injustice, simply led to her 
own dismissal. It was for both of them a cruel 
blow, and my mother has often told me how she 
wandered next day heartbroken through the empty 
desolate rooms, throwing herself at last on a sofa 
to cry her eyes out, with no one to care what had 
become of her. 

102 



FANNY LAVATER 



My mother had hardly been able to speak a word 
of German at the time when Fraulein Lavater came 
to her. Nassau belonged to the Confederation of 
the Ehine and had decidedly French sympathies, so 
that everything was new to my mother, when she 
came to Neuwied, marrying into a family that had 
been mediatised for having drawn the sword for 
Germany. She was simply shocked at the brutality 
of one of my great-uncles, who related how he had 
ridden about on the field of Waterloo, in the hope 
of finding Napoleon and making an end of him. 
' ' That fellow Bonaparte ! if I could but have got at 
him!" Uncle Max would say, clenching his fist; and 
my mother turned away in horror at such savage 
sentiments. 

There had been, quite unknown to herself, another 
marriage planned for her, with the heir to the throne 
of Eussia, whose father, the Emperor Nicholas, was 
a great friend of my grandfather. But the match, 
on which both fathers were so bent, fell through 
after my grandfather's death, the Emperor's ex- 
pressed desire merely having the effect of driving 
his son into opposition to his wishes. But my 
mother was ignorant of all this; all she knew of 
or cared for in Russia was the family of the Grand- 
Duchess Helene, her own first cousin and sister to 
her stepmother. To her, the Grand-Duchess, and 
her daughters, she was deeply attached. 

I cannot insist enough on the benefit resulting for 
us all from the presence of Fraulein Lavater in our 
midst. She came among us as a true angel of peace, 
bringing harmony into the strange mass of hetero- 

103 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

geneous elements — sometimes most conflicting and 
discordant — of which our household was composed. 
Never were we so happy, either as children or a little 
later on, as when sitting with her, close up beside 
her chair, listening to all she had to tell us. Her 
memory was so excellent and had been so assidu- 
ously cultivated, that her mind was a perfect treas- 
ure-house of all that is best and noblest in the litera- 
ture of the world. She was never idle ; her fingers 
always occupied with some pretty piece of needle- 
work whilst she talked, and when alone, they worked 
on indefatigably, her eyes meanwhile fixed on the 
book that lay open before her. It was owing to 
this praiseworthy habit, that in the course of com- 
pleting some beautiful piece of lace or embroidery, 
that looked as if wrought by fairy fingers, she had 
at the same time committed whole pages of her 
favourite authors to memory, and would therefore 
not only relate to us the substance of her reading, 
but even recite long passages of poetry or prose by 
the hour together, in her soft agreeable voice, and 
with most admirable elocution. Her needlework 
was truly artistic; much of it would have been 
worthy to find a place in a museum. Her tapestry- 
work was as if painted, and an artist friend of ours 
once said of her groups and landscapes, that whilst 
the paintings done by some young ladies of his 
acquaintance looked as if worked in cross-stitch, 
Fraulein Fanny's needlework was so fine that it 
might have been painted! "Look at that grey 
horse,' ' he went on, pointing to a little group, "so 

104 



FANNY LAVATER 



delicately is it shaded, that Wouwerman might have 
acknowledged it as the product of his brush !" 

Her own harmonious and well balanced disposi- 
tion enabled our dear "Fraulchen" to play the part 
of peace-maker among stormier natures, and her in- 
fluence was ever used for good. Never in thirty 
years of the closest intimacy did I hear a single 
word fall from her lips, by which I could possibly 
have felt hurt; and I was as ultra-sensitive and 
liable to take offence, as are most children, who are 
too harshly brought up. With others I was always 
looking out for blame, — a scolding seemed the nat- 
ural thing to expect, — never with her! She could 
find fault, too, when it was needful, but with so 
much tact and kindness, and accompanying her 
criticism with reflections that took away all its 
bitterness and made it sound almost like indirect 
praise; and then when I looked up at her, half in 
alarm, with her soft little hand she would stroke 
mine and say smiling : — 1 ' There was the horrid little 
serpent concealed beneath the roses, was it not?" 
She was for ever pouring oil on the troubled waters, 
making life better and happier for everyone, and 
most of all for us poor children, who had in many 
respects a very hard time, in an atmosphere so little 
conducive to our healthy and happy development. 
We were accustomed to say among ourselves that we 
were a three-leaved shamrock of ill-luck, our initials 
— (of all our names, Otto, Wilhelm,and Elizabeth), — 
forming together the sound Oweh, or Woe! 

Poor little wof ul shamrock in truth it was ! We 
often stood in need of someone to protect us, our 

105 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

parents ' ill-health placing us so entirely in the hands 
of our first governesses and nursery-governesses, 
who unfortunately happened to be anything but fitted 
for a position of such trust. We should have suf- 
fered still more from their harsh treatment and 
rough ways, had not Fraulein Lavater constantly 
stepped in, to interpose calmly and gently on our 
behalf. My gratitude towards her knew no bounds, 
and can find but scant expression in the words I 
write, which seem cold and colourless beside the 
feelings that dictate them. She alone understood 
the restless workings of my imagination, its insati- 
able thirst of beauty, not to be stilled by the daily 
portion of dull dry fact, which was alone provided 
by our earliest instruction, she alone cared to satisfy 
the intense longing for poetry, for literature, for 
some other knowledge than was contained in the 
little scholastic manuals of science and history on 
which our young minds were almost exclusively fed. 
Thanks to her, when I was eight years old, I was 
liberated from the very disagreeable young gover- 
ness who had tyrannised over me since my fourth 
year, and a friend of her own substituted, an amia- 
ble and highly-instructed woman, with whom I at 
once made great progress, my studies becoming from 
that moment a real delight to me. Grammar, and 
French grammar above all, was a real passion with 
me, and unconsciously I was already then, in my 
love of languages and of language itself, cultivating 
and preparing the instrument that was one day to 
be my own, to be played on as others play on the 
strings of a harp or violin. But clever and accom- 

106 



FANNY LAVATER 



plished as Fraulein Josse was, and much as I en- 
joyed my lessons with her, the hours spent with 
Fraulein Lavater were worth even more, for her 
knowledge had a still wider range, her judgment was 
more calm and clear, being utterly unbiased by any 
personal considerations. She possessed a special 
gift for calming the tumult — a tumult of thought un- 
suspected by everyone else— which my lively imag- 
ination sometimes set up in my brain. As she was 
the only person who could sympathise with my 
flights of fancy, perhaps the only one who did not 
consider absolutely culpable and reprehensible the 
tendency to indulge in them, it was only natural that 
she should be the sole confidante of my dreams and 
aspirations. With her too I could give vent to 
my natural liveliness, to the perpetual flow of high 
spirits, so sadly out of place in the atmosphere of 
the sick-room. My youthful health and strength 
drew down on me all sorts of uncomplimentary 
epithets from some of the elder members of the 
family, to whom, more even than to the invalids, my 
liveliness must have been a trial; Whirlwind, Flib- 
bertigibbet, Will-o'-the-wisp, these were a few of 
the names showered on me by Uncle Max, and more 
or less acquiesced in by the rest. It must have been 
the sensation of exuberant, irrepressible vitality 
within me which made me one day exclaim — 
" Mamma, I feel as if I could carry away a moun- 
tain !" Alas! I have sometimes thought since that 
my heedless words must have been overheard by 
Fate! 

When I came back from St. Petersburg everything 

107 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

was changed, my dear father dead, and quite a dif- 
ferent way of living to be entered on by my mother 
and myself, she being restricted henceforth to her 
dower for her own nse, the estates of course passing 
into my brother's hands, and simply being adminis- 
tered by her until his coming of age. We 
could now no longer keep open house as in the 
old days, in which the carriage had scarcely de- 
parted that took away one party of guests, when 
already and perhaps quite unexpectedly another 
would appear round the corner bringing a fresh 
relay. It was a quiet and rather lonely life that 
began thus suddenly for us three women, but no less 
full of interest, thanks to the one of us, to our 
dear Fraulein Lavater! We were hardly an hour 
of the day apart from one another, she and I ; when 
the weather made it impossible for us to go out, 
if the wind was raging or the snow falling fast, then 
we contented ourselves with walking up and down 
indoors, pacing the rooms sometimes for hours, sub- 
jects of conversation never failing, her well-stored 
mind always ready to provide some fresh topic, and 
her marvellous swiftness of intuition enabling her 
to place herself at another's point of view, and par- 
ticipate in phases of thought and feeling quite new 
to her. I had but just returned home after a 
lengthy absence, in which I had travelled much, seen 
many new countries, and met numbers of celebrated 
and interesting people. She meanwhile had re- 
mained quietly at home, surrounded daily by the 
same scenes, the same faces. And yet, how infi- 
nitely richer and fuller she had contrived to make 

108 



FANNY LAVATER 



her life, that inner life, which is in truth indepen- 
dent of and superior to all influences from without ! 

I could wish that many another young girl might 
go through the experience that then was mine, that 
she might enjoy and profit by days like our winter- 
days in Monrepos, provided, of course, that she had 
such a companion as Fraulein Lavater to share in 
them. And better still were the long winter even- 
ings, when we sat round the lamp, the immense deep 
stillness of the mighty woods reigning outside and 
a like feeling of calm, of aloofness from the world 
dwelling within our souls. Of inestimable value 
was that time for me, after all the bustle and fatigue 
of the long journeys, of the rapid succession of 
events, of all the changing, shifting phantasmagoria 
of the busy, restless world, stamped in almost be- 
wildering variety on my brain. The impressions 
had been so vivid, so multitudinous, they bade fair 
to grow confused or distorted, crowding on and 
threatening to efface each other. But now, in this 
quiet uneventful existence, I could look through the 
rich collection I had brought home with me, could 
examine each treasure undisturbed, and range them 
all in order, could bring myself into harmony with 
all I had so recently acquired. How quickly those 
evenings passed! Our fingers were busy all the 
time; my mother spinning, and I already making 
all sorts of new inventions in tatting, — that pretty 
work of which I have always been so fond, and 
which I have gone on elaborating of late years into 
something resembling old-fashioned ecclesiastical 
embroideries. We talked at intervals, or else read 

109 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



aloud by turns, — from some author whose high and 
noble thoughts we might meditate on for long after. 

It was the sensation of being enfolded and shut 
off from the rest of the world by the woods around 
us, that lent those evenings their peculiar charm. 
Often during the day I had wandered for hours 
through my beloved woods, with the sole companion- 
ship of the faithful St. Bernard dogs, my trusty 
guardians. We did not keep to the beaten path, but 
plunged into the deepest thickets, threading our way 
through the most tangled growth of brushwood. 
And on my return, my first care was to note down 
the songs which the trees had whispered in my ear 
as I passed beneath them. I was the wild rose, 
the wood rose, for all my friends. They had christ- 
ened me thus, because of the roses on my cheeks, 
which I never lost, although so much of my youth 
had been spent in the atmosphere of the sick-room. 
I might indeed pass as a living contradiction to 
every sort of theory of infection, my magnificent 
health would have given the lie to all stories of 
germs and microbes, — I was really never ill in my 
life, and never had occasion to see a doctor, until 
the attack of typhoid fever I had while in St. Peters- 
burg. That was perhaps in a great measure the 
result of the long anxiety, the sadness of years, 
but it did not come on till afterwards, not in the 
least as an immediate consequence of the unhealthy 
atmosphere in which I had grown up. 

The drawback to the life we were now leading, 
lay of course in its natural tendency to encourage 
mere dreaming, almost at the expense perhaps of 

HO 



FANNY LAVATER 



one's active duties, of all practical work. For me 
this might have been a special danger, had I not been 
preserved from it by the good sense, the clearsight- 
edness, the spirit of self-sacrifice of my Mentor. 
Of herself she never thought at all. Therein lay 
the secret of her great power, of her unbounded 
influence. On her deathbed she could say: — "How 
good it is, when one's whole life has been filled by 
one great affection !" 

For those who knew her best, her whole existence 
was summed up in those words. But did they 
also contain a hidden meaning, the key to a secret 
none had ever guessed, some page of quite unsus- 
pected romance, an attachment which death or cir- 
cumstances had cut short? I had sometimes won- 
dered that she alone of all her sisters had remained 
unmarried, had therefore never known the happi- 
ness of having a home, a family of her own; but, 
like everyone else, I had grown accustomed to the 
idea that her devotion to my mother was so all- 
absorbing as to leave no room for any other affec- 
tion in her heart. Most probably was it so, and 
that her last words did but refer to the friendship, 
the affection, to which she had devoted her whole 
life, identifying herself so entirely with the feelings, 
the hopes, the interests and aims of the family of 
which in the truest sense she had become a member, 
that she found within that circle ample scope for 
the exercise of all her energy, the satisfaction of all 
her wishes, nor ever for one moment regretted hav- 
ing formed no other ties. She died in the year 1877, 
after the Balkan war, that war on which hung the 

111 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

destinies of Boumania, and out of which the country- 
came forth victorious and independent, and before 
her death she had come to pay me a visit there, 
appearing in her old character of an angel of peace 
and consolation. For it was in the saddest, darkest 
hour of my whole existence, that in which its whole 
joy and happiness, granted to me for so short a 
time, had been torn from me forever, and when my 
only wish was to be allowed myself to die also. In 
that moment of utter hopelessness, none knew as 
did this old friend of mine, in what manner alone 
to strive to reconcile me with life. Hers were the 
gentle words, the gentle touch, that can never hurt, 
that one can bear, even when one's whole heart 
seems to be an open wound. * ' Bun de pus pe rana, ' ' 
— ' ' good enough to be put on a wound/ ' is a Eou- 
manian proverb, that always recurs to me, in think- 
ing of Fraulein Lavater, for it exactly describes the 
feeling one had when with her. Her hands were 
soft as satin, and in the moral or spiritual sphere, 
she had just the same exquisite softness of touch. 
Whilst others, even with the very best intentions, 
seemed only too often to bear heavily on a spot 
too sensitive to be breathed upon, every word and 
action of hers was like balm to the soul. Instead of 
making the vain attempt to offer consolation for a 
sorrow beyond redress, she understood at once that 
in such utter bereavement one can only be reconciled 
to the world by the effort to live for others. And 
that lesson she was best fitted to teach, who had for 
so many years practised it in her own person, put- 
ting herself so entirely on one side, and only think- 

112 



FANNY LAVATER 



ing how she could help and comfort those around 
her. One felt sure of never being misunderstood 
or misjudged by her, since her readiness of sym- 
pathy enabled her at all times to put herself in 
another's place, and look at the situation from an- 
other point of view. Witty and amusing in conver- 
sation, her modesty made her draw back more and 
more from general society as she grew older, under 
the plea that old people are always dull, but this did 
not prevent a proper sense of her own dignity, of 
that which was due to herself. She once said to 
me with a smile, in relating an incident from which 
it appeared that she had scarce been treated with 
due consideration — "Well, if the place allotted me 
at table did me no honour, I must suppose that I did 
honour to the place by accepting it!" Impartial 
and dispassionate in her judgment of men and 
events, she was equally unbiased in her literary 
criticisms, paying absolutely no heed to the voice of 
public opinion in such matters, but thinking and 
judging for herself. No one I have known ever pos- 
sessed in the same degree the gift of rapid and 
unerring discernment: she would glance through a 
volume, and in a moment her mind was made up 
as to its contents; she seemed able to take in, and 
digest and assimilate them, in less time than it would 
take most people to read the headings of the chap- 
ters. It was a real pleasure to see her, when a big 
parcel of books arrived from a library; sometimes 
a peep into the uncut pages of a volume sufficed for 
it to be put on one side to be returned as not worthy 
of further attention, whilst over others she hovered, 

8 113 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



paper-knife in hand, glancing now here, now there, 
and choosing the best for more serious perusal, 
like a bee, we used to tell her, that darts from one 
plant to the other, sipping honey from the choicest 

blossoms ! 

Like the bees too, who are not content each to 
gather honey for itself alone, but bring it all to the 
common store, the treasures culled by Fraulein Lav- 
ater from her reading were not intended solely for 
her own pleasure and profit, but were ever destined 
to more unselfish purposes. She could enliven the 
dullest society, revive the most languishing conver- 
sation with some apposite remark, some reference 
to a topic so well chosen that even the most listless 
felt their interest aroused. And best of all, her 
soft low voice was like a charm for mental fatigue 
or overstrung nerves. It was as if she could wile 
away headache or worry with her gentle tones, she 
brought comfort to every sick-bed, and in the long 
weary day of convalescence, when the work of tak- 
ing up again the burden of existence is perchance 
almost too great an effort for the weakened frame, 
who was there could ever, like Fraulchen, cheer and 
rouse one from one's apathy, who else possessed 
such an inexhaustible fund of delightful stories, or 
could relate them as she did? How often, in later 
days, in the long slow recovery from illness, have I 
not sighed for her presence, feeling that she could 
beguile my pain and weariness with one of the 
stories or legends she told so well. She it was who 
first encouraged in me the taste for literature, the 
love of poetry, in which others saw only a weakness 

114 



FANNY LAVATER 

and a danger. It was her guiding hand that 
directed my youthful talent into the right path, 
treating it as a plant worthy of cultivation, and not 
as a dangerous or perhaps even poisonous weed, to 
be rooted up or trodden under foot ! For it was to 
many quite a shocking idea, that a princess should 
not merely have the misfortune to be born a poet, 
but that she should actually take no pains to conceal 
so terrible a fact ! That sort of talent really could 
not be considered suitable to one's station, and 
where there was no possibility of extirpating, it 
must at least be hidden away out of sight! But 
Fraulein Lavater, in her quiet unobtrusive way, 
saying no word to hurt prevailing prejudices and 
thereby expose me to still greater disapprobation, 
found the means of lending just the aid and shelter- 
ing care so requisite to my first timid attempts at 
giving poetic form to the emotional and intellectual 
chaos over which I brooded. The sure and refined 
taste of the elder woman rendered invaluable ser- 
vice to the somewhat headlong and indiscriminat- 
ing enthusiasm of youth, in pointing out to me, at 
the same time with the best models for admiration 
and imitation, errors to be avoided, excesses and 
weaknesses to be condemned. Then, as later, it was 
the certainty that one's efforts and aspirations, 
one's failures and mistakes would meet in her, not 
merely with justice, but with that indulgence which 
is perhaps the highest form of human justice, this 
it was which inspired one with confidence in seeking 
her verdict, and spared one the excessive discour- 
agement some criticisms invariably leave behind. 

115 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



A sense of justice is very strong in most children, 
and they suffer more acutely than is generally sup- 
posed, in the consciousness of being unjustly treated. 
Misjudged as in my childhood I felt myself to be by 
the iron disciplinarians whose aim it was to crush 
out all originality, it was a comfort to know that to 
one person I never appeared wilful or headstrong, 
and it was perhaps scarce possible to experience a 
greater satisfaction than was mine in later years, in 
hearing Fraulchen 's affectionate tribute to ' ' our sun- 
beam,' ' as she was fond of calling me: — "She was 
always a dear good child, only wishing to make 
everyone happy ! ' ' 

To this very day, in those moments of disappoint- 
ment and lassitude by which all of us are at times 
beset, I have but to think of Fraulein Lavater, for 
the old feeling of peace and calm to come over me, 
and the physical pain is at once stilled, and the cares 
and troubles that seemed overpowering shrink into 
insignificance. More than once, in times gone by, 
when the burden laid upon my shoulders seemed 
greater than I could bear, her adroit touch adjusted 
it and turned it into a feather-weight, and recalling 
this, I rouse myself again to the struggle, to find as 
before my strength and courage increase, in propor- 
tion to the difficulties of the situation. I was in 
good truth Fraulchen 's pupil, her spiritual child, 
and it was as much for her as for myself that I was 
indignant, when of recent years an absurd report 
came to my knowledge, of a nervous complaint from 
which I was said to be suffering! As soon might 
one have credited her, the best-balanced person in 

116 



FANNY LAVATER 



the world, with an hysterical or nervous attack, 
since, like herself, I have always had my nerves 
under perfect control, and sharing in her somewhat 
contemptuous feeling for neurasthenia, neurosis, or 
any other such new-fangled disorder, I should con- 
sider it something degrading, of which to be 
ashamed, to be justly ranged among its victims. I 
have given, I think, sufficient proof to the contrary, 
and have shown of what well-tempered steel my 
nerves are made, by continuing my work uninter- 
ruptedly during long years of ill-health, and in spite 
of severe and almost unremitting pain, of which the 
doctors only much later discovered the cause. Well 
may I claim to disdain nerves and all who suffer 
from them, considering that they only too often 
serve as a mask, behind which selfishness and hypoc- 
risy are hidden. Fraulein Lavater, at any rate, did 
not plead nerves if ever her equanimity were dis- 
turbed; she would own quite candidly: — "I am so 
irritable to-day ! ' ' 

In one of the little albums — 6 ' Books of Confes- 
sions, ' ' as they were called, — that at one time had so 
much vogue, among a host of silly questions, this 
one was asked: "Of all human qualities which do 
you prize most highly V 9 Without a moment's hesi- 
tation, my father wrote down : 1 4 Enlightened good- 
ness of heart !" No better description could be 
given of our Fraulein. Hers was the kindness, the 
goodness of heart, that may be truly said to be 
" illuminated " by the understanding; not that mere 
unthinking, easy good nature, blind in perception 
and indiscriminate in action, but the sympathy that 

117 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



springs from deepest insight, the indulgence that is 
born of comprehension — in a word, the charity that 
"beareth and endureth all things/ ' In each family 
circle, ever a little world in itself, with its some- 
times incongruous elements and oft divergent and 
conflicting interests, and wherein the little rift may 
so soon be widened to an irreparable breach, the 
trifling dissension develop into implacable enmity, 
the presence of one person endowed with this rarest 
of human attributes will ever be the harmonising 
medium, the spirit of conciliation, the factor indis- 
pensable to the cohesion of the group. 

Would that there were more like Fraulchen in 
this weary world! Fate is hard enough towards 
most of us. No need that we should ever strive 
to place a stumbling-block in another's path, or 
make it darker by one shadow the more. Let us 
at least cherish the memory of all, whose "irradiat- 
ing kindliness" for a moment brightened the gloom. 

Wherever great intelligence and true culture com- 
bine, as in the person of Fanny Lavater, with moral 
strength and sweetness to the formation of a char- 
acter, the result is like the harmonious blending of 
rich hues in some beautiful old cathedral window, 
through which the daylight streaming, transforms 
into new and unwonted loveliness even the common- 
est objects on which it falls ! 



CHAPTER VII 



BUN SEN 

It was at the time when this learned and accom- 
plished friend of the highly gifted King Frederick 
William IV. was the representative of Prussia at 
the Court of St. James, that I first visited England 
in my childhood. We came over twice, on the first 
occasion to stay in the Isle of Wight, whilst our 
second visit was divided between Hastings and 
London. A sincere and lasting friendship then 
sprang up between my family and that of this re- 
markable man, continuing to this day among the 
members of a younger generation. 

Bunsen loved to be the Mecaenas of men of talent, 
and many were the interesting people whom we met 
at his house. The whole family was musical; two 
of the sons, just then students at the University of 
Bonn, sang most delightfully; "Kathleen Mavour- 
neen" was first made known to me by the pleasing 
tenor of the one, and the other gave the famous 
"Figaro qua, Figaro la," of the "Barber of Seville," 
with great effect in his agreeable baritone. I had 
the pleasure of hearing the organ in Westminster 
Abbey played by the eldest daughter, whose profes- 
sor, the celebrated organist, Neukomm, became from 
that moment a most welcome guest in our house, 
sometimes staying with us for weeks at a time. It 
was from this fine old musician that in my twelfth 
year I began learning the harmonium, and became 

119 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



moreover an enthusiast like himself for the sweet 
plaintive tones of the .ZEolian harp. It was his 
delight to fix one of these simple instruments in the 
crack of an open door, and seat himself in the full 
draught, to listen for and note down the weird melo- 
dies played by the wind. Often on a lovely sum- 
mer's evening, — in the moonlight of Monrepos that 
has been sung of among us from generation to gen- 
eration, — we would have the harmonium brought 
out on the terrace, and letting his fingers stray over 
the keys, Neukomm would imitate the sighing of the 
breeze in the strings of the harp, catching up the 
echo of some murmuring sound, and repeating and 
improvising on it for hours. 

Our stay in the Isle of Wight was delightful, and 
I look back on the pretty little island as a sort of 
earthly paradise, fit scene for a happy, idyllic life. 
Our little villa was smothered in the clustering roses 
that climbed over it everywhere, and on all sides 
stretched a lawn of beautiful soft green grass, per- 
fectly kept, but upon which we children could fling 
ourselves and play to our hearts ' content ; such a re- 
lief after the perpetual injunctions to refrain from 
stepping on the grass, to which we were accustomed 
in Germany. Then we had the good luck too, to be 
by the sea during a spring-tide, a novel experience, 
that gave us a most glorious excitement, as we hap- 
pened to be taking our daily sea-bath, and there was 
the very greatest difficulty in getting the bathing- 
machine safely back to the beach again. The ropes 
with which the poor horse was harnessed gave way, 
and the man, who was pale with fright, had hard 

120 



BUNSEN 



work to rescue the little house-on-wheels with its 
occupants, whilst my brother and I were simply 
delighted to see the waves dash over it, rejoicing 
at last to encounter something that was like a real 
adventure ! 

Our second visit to England was in the year 1851, 
and we were in London just at the closing of the 
first great International Exhibition, at which I re- 
member seeing immense crowds of people standing 
bare-headed and cheering, as "God save the 
Queen ! ' 9 was played. That spectacle made more im- 
pression on me than anything in the Exhibition 
itself, unless it was perhaps the splendid trees, one 
giant oak-tree in particular, which had been built 
in with the edifice, completely roofed over by the 
big glass dome. Other contemporary events I did 
not witness myself, but only heard of them from our 
friends, — the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, 
for instance, — which they described to us passing 
their house, the Embassy in Carlton Terrace, in an 
endless procession rolling on for hours, like wave 
on wave in swift succession, to the mournful strains 
of the Dead March from the Eroica Symphony. As 
the sounds of one military band died away in the 
distance, the next one had already come up in step 
to the melancholy cadence of the selfsame march. 
Just like the rising and sinking of ocean waves was 
the impressive yet monotonous grandeur of the 
nation's tribute to its great soldier. 

The Prussian Embassy was at that time fre- 
quented by almost every one of talent or high intel- 
lectual culture to be found in London, Bunsen pos- 

121 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



sessing in a remarkable degree the gift of attracting 
clever people to himself. He was quick too to 
discern the promise of future eminence in others, 
and many might relate how in that genial atmos- 
phere their talent was discovered and encouraged 
and obtained its first recognition. Mendelssohn and 
Max Miiller were amongst those who quite young 
there found themselves at once prized at their true 
value. The conversational powers of the master of 
the house himself, the young people so gifted and 
versatile, the open hospitality, the excellent music, — 
all these things were so many magnets, that drew 
strangers within the charmed sphere. I was of 
course not capable then of appreciating the depth of 
Bunsen's learning or his intellectual worth, but his 
marvellous command of language and rhetorical 
facility impressed me greatly. In the fluency of 
his speech, the ease and elegance with which on all 
occasions he expressed himself, he resembled his 
royal friend, Frederick William IV. And his hand- 
some face recalled that of the great Goethe at an 
advanced age, the likeness being especially striking 
on his deathbed. 

But it was only natural that at that time Bunsen's 
children and grandchildren should interest me much 
more than he did himself. The lame daughter, 
above all, like my mother at that time, being always 
wheeled about in her chair and unable to walk a 
step, and in whose features I also discovered some- 
thing of a likeness to my mother, that perhaps lay 
in the kind gentle smile. The sympathy they felt 
for one another was naturally strengthened by their 

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BUNSEN 



common misfortune, in each case the lameness 
appearing to be absolutely incurable. During the 
summer we spent in the Isle of Wight, my mother 
could still go about on crutches, then after the birth 
of my younger brother her condition grew far worse, 
complete atrophy of the one leg having apparently 
set in, and the pain hardly allowing her any sleep 
at night. Fraulein von Bunsen's lameness pro- 
ceeded from an attack of coxalgia as an infant, and 
since her sixth year all hope had been abandoned 
of her ever being able to walk. We children were 
meantime quite at home in the house of one of her 
brothers, playing with his children, with whom we 
continued on affectionate terms our whole life long. 
It is a satisfaction to be able to look back on fifty 
years of uninterrupted friendship such as this. 
Very specially did it exist between myself and Bun- 
sen's daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, so dear to me, that 
it was almost as if ties of blood had united us. Only 
quite recently did I bid a last farewell to this sweet 
and lovable woman, death having called her away. 
But she lives on in my remembrance, and I have an 
agreeable recollection also of her father, the Quaker, 
Gurney, and of his greeting, warm and courteous in 
spite of his keeping his hat on his head, as he met 
us on the threshold of his house with the words — 
"Be welcome to my home!" 

I observed and learned a great deal more than 
anyone at that time suspected ! It was my first stay 
in a great city, and the first lesson it brought home 
to me was that of complete acquiescence in my own 
limitations, or rather in those imposed on me by 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



circumstances, my very modest supply of pocket- 
money making quite unattainable all the splendours 
I saw exhibited in the shop windows. There was 
one lovely doll-shop, with the most exquisite dolls, 
as big as real babies, and directly I had a small 
sum to spend, I made my way thither, quite happy 
to have a close view of all these treasures, even if I 
should be unable to purchase any of them. And in 
truth, it was just the tiniest wax-doll of all that the 
contents of my small purse could buy — but such 
a lovely one, in a dear little tiny bed with curtains 
of rose-coloured silk, through which the rosy light 
streamed over the delicate little wax face. How I 
loved that doll ! It looked just like a little princess 
in a fairy tale, or a fairy itself, sleeping there in the 
beautiful rose-coloured light. None of the bigger, 
grander dolls could have appealed to my imagina- 
tion as did this little one. After all it is on that — 
on the part played by their own imagination, that 
chiefly depends the amount of pleasure children get 
out of their toys, and those that are in proportion 
to their own diminutive scale and on a level with 
their simple requirements, appeal to them far more 
than others, chiefly remarkable for their magnitude 
and costliness. Lively as I was, I took the very 
greatest care of all my toys, treating them as if 
they were animate, sentient objects, so that I was in 
despair if any of them got broken or hurt. Demon- 
strations of affection never being encouraged, in fact 
being rather sternly repressed in our family, all my 
pent up tenderness poured itself out on my dolls 
and also on my little horse-hair pillow which I used 

124 



BUNSEN 



to hug and kiss in gratitude every night before going 
to sleep. It was all the dearer to me, because it was 
not taken with us on our journeys, and as I was 
not allowed to sleep on a down pillow, I generally, 
when we were away from home, had to do without 
altogether, which was by no means pleasant. Not- 
withstanding — or perhaps in consequence of this 
severe training, — having always been accustomed in 
my youth to sleep on a rather hard thin mattress 
stretched on a very narrow camp bedstead, I have 
grown somewhat more luxurious in that respect in 
my later years, and can hardly now be too softly 
pillowed in order to rest at ease. It is as if there 
were a sort of reaction, — a revolt of human nature 
against unnecessary and useless hardships imposed, 
— a lassitude of the whole frame to which some 
slight measure of indulgence must be accorded. Not 
in the matter of the palate though! Naturally ab- 
stemious, the habits of my youth still prevail with 
me there to such an extent, that to this day I prefer 
a slice of good wholesome black bread to all the dain- 
tiest, most skilfully prepared dishes in the world! 
We children knew too by experience the relish that 
the imagination may impart to the simplest fare, 
unconsciously resembling one of the creations of the 
great English novelist as we ' ' made believe" to 
spread a little butter on the bread which the hy- 
gienic theories of the age insisted on our eating dry ! 
But everything has its compensation, and who knows 
if those pleasures of the imagination, which were our 
chief resource, are not denied to the younger genera- 
tion, from whom we scarcely seem to exact even 

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FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

needful self-restraint and self-denial, much less to 
call upon them for any exceptional sacrifice of their 
own comfort. Where every whim is gratified from 
the outset, there remains neither the necessity nor 
the inclination to seek refuge from unpleasant reali- 
ties in a fairer world, to spread one's wings and 
take flight for the realms of Fancy. Do the children 
of the present day even rightly believe in the possi- 
bility of thus spreading their wings! Would not 
some of these little sceptics laugh at the idea? Poor 
little things ! Can it really be that there is no fairy- 
land for them, no enchanted isles in the distant 
ocean, no kingdoms to conquer, no heroic deeds to 
be performed, that their souls find complete satisfac- 
tion in the prosaic details of everyday life, and 
never soar beyond the region of dull commonplace 
fact of their dreary school-hours! They little know 
of what they are deprived ! They could never guess 
the joy we knew in the possession of this wondrous 
secret, this magic key, which unlocked the gates of 
fairyland, of the world of dreams, of noble adven- 
ture, wherein we could wander at will. What battles 
we fought, what gallant deeds we performed, what 
wrongs we redressed with the aid of those invisible 
armies, always at hand to come to our assistance and 
conduct us to victory, when the odds seemed too 
overpowering ! But we had not invariably such ex- 
alted ambitions as these, it was not even always the 
discovery of some lonely desert island on which we 
were bent, but a much simpler, more modest lot satis- 
fied us, provided it were but sufficiently removed 
from that which in truth was ours ! Thus it was one 

126 



BUNSEN 



of my favourite ideas from the time I was four years 
old, to be a village schoolmistress, but I could not 
persuade my brother to promise that he would settle 
down beside me as the schoolmaster. That would 
have clashed with his dream of being a soldier, so 
it was settled that I should be the ' ' daughter of the 
regiment, ' ' the vivandiere, and accompany it every- 
where so that we might not be separated. Ah! 
what marvellous adventures, what hairbreadth es- 
capes, what glorious triumphs were ours! Some- 
times we were sold as slaves, at others we were bold 
sea-f arers and again quiet peasant-folk carrying our 
spades and milk-cans. It was by this means that we 
kept up our spirits, and preserved our good humour 
successfully, in spite of all that was irksome in 
our actual surroundings. Thanks to my lively 
imagination, I did not succumb to the persistent 
onslaught of the educational efforts destined to turn 
the current of my thoughts into a perfectly alien 
channel. In vain was I tied down to science and 
mathematics, logarithms and equations will forever 
be to me lifeless, meaningless abstractions, and it 
took me much less time than I had spent in acquiring 
it, to forget the velocity of a body falling through 
space! As for doing a simple sum in addition, I 
might as well never have learned the process at all 
for the little I know about it now. But the art of 
inventing a story, of calling up imaginary beings, 
of following them through the vicissitudes of their 
career, and weaving all this together to a plot — that 
was mine then and is still mine, notwithstanding all 
that was done to crush it out of me. What should 

127 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



I have done on the long tedious journeys, had I not 
been able to amuse myself by the delightful stories 
I thought out. Sitting cramped in my corner of 
the travelling-carriage or railway compartment, 
afraid even to stretch my limbs lest the movement 
should disturb one or other of the invalids, I owe it 
to my imagination alone, that child as I was, I 
did not fall into hopeless melancholy. 

It was this same happy faculty of creating for 
myself an ideal atmosphere, and peopling this new 
world with my best-beloved heroes, and the no less 
heroic creations of my own brain, — this it was which 
lent so great a charm to many of our resorts, — 
standing us in good stead for instance, in investing 
with beauty the rather tame, stiff garden of a Lon- 
don square, so unsuited for the abode of mystery 
or romance. Apart from our intimacy with the 
Bunsen family, our stay in London possessed in- 
deed few attractions for us. There was no relaxa- 
tion of the customary strictness with which we were 
treated, on the contrary, there seemed to be an 
accumulation of wearisome restrictions and petty 
annoyances attendant on the stay in strange houses. 
Even when there was a garden, we might hardly 
p]ay there, certainly not dig in it, nor run across 
the lawn, and as for venturing to gather a flower, 
I was haunted by visions of angry men pursuing us 
with thick sticks, ever since the day when the land- 
lord had shaken his finger at us, just for touching 
his orange-trees ! It was a little better in Hastings, 
where we had the beautiful open sea, and the beach 
on which we could play undisturbed. But our pleas- 

128 



BUNSEN 



nre there was damped by our perpetual anxiety and 
sadness on my mother's behalf, whose illness had 
already entered then on its most distressing stage. 
From the window I could see her carried in and out 
of the sea, sometimes alas! to lie in convulsions on 
the beach, the servants standing round holding up 
umbrellas to protect her from the gaze of inquisi- 
tive onlookers. I stood sad and helpless at the 
window, unable to understand the unfeeling curi- 
osity of these strangers. It was not quite so bad 
on their part though, as the behaviour of two Ger- 
mans on the steamer that brought us over from Os- 
tend, who kept pushing against my mother's lame 
foot as she sat on deck, and even complained at her, 
for taking up so much room. It hurt her most of 
all, that it should be her own countrymen who were 
thus rude and heartless. Let us hope that it was 
merely sea-sickness which made them so inhuman! 
And the lady resembled them who, when my mother 
had dragged herself on her crutches to a railway- 
carriage and was preparing to enter it, shut the 
door in her face, saying: — u there is no room here!" 
What a contrast to the good old bathing-man at 
Hastings, who used to carry her in and out of the 
water, and was so sorry to see how she suffered, 
that he would pat her cheek gently, and talk to her 
as if he were comforting a small child: — " There, 
there, poor dear! it will be better soon!" 

That journey from Ostend belongs to the most 
painful experiences of my childhood, it was nothing 
but discomfort and sadness, and I shall never forget 
the wailing of my poor little baby brother Otto, suf- 
9 129 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



fering all night long in one of the frightful parox- 
ysms of pain, for which in vain relief was sought. 
His devoted English nurse, our good Barnes, sat 
rocking him in her arms the whole time, and every 
now and then she cast a sympathetic glance my 
way, but she could do nothing to help or comfort 
me, she was entirely taken up with her poor little 
charge. Had there been anyone there who could 
have told me a story to distract my thoughts, to take 
me for a moment out of myself, and away from the 
unhappiness which I was helpless to console ! How 
often may not some pretty well-told tale, some little 
snatch of song, help a child to forget the misery of 
its weary limbs and aching head, and soothe it to 
sleep. 

One of my best and happiest experiences belongs 
however here, and must not be forgotten. It re- 
lates to that very Fraulein von Bunsen, the lame 
daughter, Emilie, "Aunt Mim," as we afterwards 
called her, of whom I have already spoken. And 
the incident was called forth by some childish mis- 
deed of mine, one of those trivial offences many 
would deem scarce worth noticing, but for which 
with us a punishment utterly disproportionate to the 
enormity of the crime was invariably inflicted. I 
was thus on this occasion condemned to be left be- 
hind alone, while the others set off joyously in five 
or six carriages to spend a day among the hop- 
pickers, — a treat to which I had been looking for- 
ward for weeks past. As they drove off, and I stood 
watching them sadly from the balcony, seeing their 
happy faces and listening to their gay laughter, 

130 



BUNSEN 

feeling myself to be an outcast from the paradise 
towards which they were setting forth, — it was then 
that the lame Fraulein von Bunsen, happening to 
look up, caught sight of me, and before I could hide 
myself, had waved her hand to me with a friendly 
smile that went far to reconcile me with my lot 
and the world in general. The greeting, the smile, 
fell on my wounded heart like balm. Up to that 
moment I had felt somewhat like a condemned crimi- 
nal, fearing that I must be looked down upon and 
shunned by every member of that happy party, since 
it was known to them all that I was deprived by my 
own fault of the pleasure of joining them. But the 
kind thought, the kind smile, took away all the bitter- 
ness of my reflections, and were treasured piously 
in my memory. Years after, when I reminded dear 
Aunt Mini of the occurrence, I was still more pleased 
to hear from her that my absence had been much 
regretted, not by her alone, but by all the others, 
on that day. They were all so sorry for me, she 
said, and missed the wonderful stories, which I was 
never tired of telling on all such excursions. I had 
forgotten all about that, my best stories being 
always made up for myself alone, as I lay in bed 
in the morning, awake with the birds and listening 
to their singing, and feeling the spirit of song just 
as alive in me, while the rest of the house was still 
fast asleep. I only remembered her kindness and 
the comfort it gave me, and until she reminded me 
of it, had never thought again of that other unlucky 
day on which the wheel of the little donkey-carriage, 
with her mother and youngest sister sitting in it, 

131 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



passed over my foot, at which I took care not to cry 
out or even make a face, and was only betrayed 
by the torn condition of my shoe, which led to my 
being scolded and sent home to have my foot bathed, 
instead of being allowed to continue my walk. 

What a pretty picture Fraulein von Bunsen made 
in those days with her sweet expression, and pink 
and white complexion, leaning back in her bath- 
chair in her pink dress and hat with pink roses, 
pink veil and sunshade, looking a very rosebud her- 
self ! She was like my mother in this also, that the 
same treatment by which the latter was restored to 
health was very effective in her case too, and after 
undergoing it she spent many years in our house. 
Very intelligent, she possessed in a high degree the 
riper wisdom peculiar to those who have watched 
from afar the waves of life go surging by, them- 
selves untouched by their tumult. An invalid looks 
on at the spectacle of human existence with some- 
thing of the aloofness of a recluse, and is able to 
preserve the same childlike candour and crystalline 
purity of soul. No passion had ever stirred the 
depths of hers. It was like a deep transparent 
lake, in which earth and sky are reflected, clouds 
and sunshine, night and storm, and which yet re- 
mains unchanged through all. She reached her 
eightieth year in the same untroubled harmony of 
thought and feeling, her features very little altered 
by age, and her voice as sweet and clear as ever. 
Music was the very centre of her being, round which 
her whole existence revolved. I played duets with 
her for hours together, learning to know all the best 

132 



BUNSEN 



works of the great classic composers so thoroughly 
and well, it was as if the glorious floods of melody 
had passed into my veins, to flow there mingled with 
my blood for evermore. How often did we thus 
succeed in flinging away all sorrow and care, feeling 
our troubles ooze out at the finger-tips, and our 
souls grow lighter as we played! All the days of 
my youth seem to pass before me, whenever I hear 
Beethoven's Symphonies: certain of them, — the sec- 
ond, and that in C minor, — represent for me, as do 
Schubert's Quartet and Mozart's Symphony in G 
minor, very special phases of my existence, storms 
that were laid to rest by their potent spell. Our 
piano was a very old instrument whose keys were 
yellow with age, but to us it had the fulness of tone 
of a whole orchestra. And to strengthen the illu- 
sion, my father would often join us and hum or 
whistle some special passage as it is written for the 
different instruments, to try to give me some faint 
idea of the orchestral effect. In our enthusiasm 
we had soon forgotten the limitations of the means 
at our command, above all we forgot our own imper- 
fections, we felt the whole orchestration, and in the 
grandeur of the conception the inadequacy of the 
performance was quite swallowed up. Is that not 
the best way to enjoy these divine masterpieces, the 
safest method of interpretation? It would not suf- 
fice, I am well aware, for the exigencies of a modern 
audience, incapable of drawing on the imagination 
to supply the deficiencies of execution. The hurry 
and bustle of the century leave no room for the mod- 
est efforts of a dilettante, imbued though these may 

133 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



be with the spirit of truest adoration. Ours was 
the purest hero-worship, unmixed with aught of per- 
sonal vanity or ambition. We simply thanked God, 
in the fulness of our hearts, that He had sent Bee- 
thoven to enrich and beautify the world! 

At other times Aunt Mim would sit quietly at work 
in the library, whilst I wandered restlessly to and 
fro, like a caged lion, as she always said, telling 
her all that passed through my brain. It was just 
her unruffled calm that encouraged me to let loose 
on her the flood-gates of my soul. Surely those hu- 
man beings come nearest perfection, who have pre- 
served through life their angelic innocence, and it 
is perhaps to further this that such are often afflicted 
with some bodily infirmity, whereby the soul has 
power to raise itself above this earth. 

By her perfect submission to the Divine Will, her 
firm faith which no doubt had ever clouded, no less 
than by her unswerving fidelity in friendship, and 
the cheerful, sunny temperament that had in it some- 
thing of the playfulness and simplicity of a child, 
Aunt Mim was the pearl of her whole family and 
became invaluable and indispensable to ours. In 
those hours of greatest suffering, when words of 
good cheer could no more avail, then her quiet sym- 
pathy would yet often find means of making life a 
little more endurable to the poor sick child, of dis- 
tracting my father's thoughts from present sadness. 
Only one so utterly detached from all thought of self 
could have refreshed and lightened that atmosphere 
of gloom. So heavily did it press at times on my 
childish mind, and so thoroughly had my mother 

134 



BUNSEN 



inculcated the belief in death as the supreme good 
to be wished and desired by us all, as the sole release 
from pain and suffering for ourselves and others, 
that during the weeks in which, after my brother 
Otto's birth, she lay between life and death, my 
governess often heard me praying that God would 
take her to Himself! It caused some perplexity, I 
believe, to her who overheard this singular prayer, 
to hit on the right method of bringing me to desist 
from it, without disturbing the effect of the maternal 
teaching, and she wisely contented herself with tell- 
ing me that although it would doubtless be for 
Mamma's happiness to go to heaven, I need not ask 
for this, as God would take her to Himself in His 
own good time, and that moreover I should then see 
her no more. I was very much astonished at this, 
never having for a moment contemplated the possi- 
bility of being deprived of my mother's presence 
by death. My idea of heaven was of something 
so real and near, that whenever I gazed up into the 
blue sky, I felt sure that were my beloved ones 
there, I might at any moment see a little window 
opening to let me through to join them! Well is it 
with us if we can keep this belief through life, if 
like children, who have left their heavenly home too 
recently to accustom themselves to this earth, and 
could depart again from it without a pang, we can 
but bear in mind during the whole course of our 
dreary pilgrimage, that we have here no abiding 
place, and keep our hopes fixed on the life beyond ! 

If I appear to dwell overmuch on my inner life in 
childhood, it is for the sake of other children, many 

135 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



of whom are perhaps as liable to be misunderstood 
as I was myself. Who was there, of the grown-up 
people around me, who could ever guess what was 
really passing in my mind? Taught that it was my 
duty to enliven and gladden others, I had schooled 
my face to an expression of perpetual cheerfulness, 
and should have considered myself eternally dis- 
graced, had anyone ever surprised me in tears. It 
is only by the utmost kindness and tenderness, that 
we can hope to win the confidence of a proud and 
sensitive child, and break down the wall of reserve 
behind which it early learns to intrench itself. 

Among the many agreeable recollections I retain 
of the house in Carlton Terrace, that of the entrance 
and staircase is especially vivid, both being carpeted, 
as was the passage leading to the rooms above, with 
soft green felt, while book-shelves lined every avail- 
able space along the walls. Such a friendly, home- 
like impression was thus at once created, intensified 
by the habit of making of the entrance-hall, on which 
the doors of all the rooms opened, a favourite resort 
for reading or conversation. That green carpeting, 
of just the tint of the green baize of a billiard-table, 
on which one's eyes rested with so much pleasure, 
was no less agreeable to the ears, every sound being 
deadened, and the wheeled chairs of the invalids 
passing over it quite noiselessly. 

Under Bunsen's auspices, a literary society was 
founded in Bonn, whose members — generally under 
pseudonyms — submitted their work for his approval. 
Among the translators, my mother distinguished 
herself by a version of the magnificent Paternoster 

136 



BUNS EN 



in Dante's Purgatorio, and another of Longfellow's 
Song of the Old Clock, with its mournful refrain — 
1 ' Forever — never, — never — forever ! ' ' 

Needless to say, though it is perhaps the proper 
place to insist upon it here, that I cannot pretend to 
describe the persons I have known, otherwise than 
just as they appeared to me at the time itself, these 
reminiscences being but the faithful transcription of 
the impressions received at different periods of my 
life, starting from my earliest childhood. Not for 
one moment can I profess to have been competent at 
the early age that then was mine, to form a correct 
idea of Bunsen's literary merits. Of his books, the 
" Signs of the Times" and others, the titles were 
all that was known to me, but my respect for the 
career of letters was innate and unbounded, and the 
fact that he was an author impressed me immensely. 
Sometimes I have vaguely wondered since, whether 
with him intellectual brilliancy in the best meaning 
of the word may not have outweighed depth of 
thought. But this is a mere conjecture, on which 
it would be unfair to base a judgment. One talent, 
that was indisputably his, and which since I have 
been able rightly to appreciate it I have often envied 
him, was Bunsen's marvellous facility for skimming 
through a book, and acquiring by that rapid survey 
a sufficient knowledge of its contents, to be able to 
discuss it afterwards, most minutely in all par- 
ticulars with the author, as if he had read every 
word of it! 

Another gift, which is sometimes denied to people 
of commanding intellect, but which invariably ren- 

137 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



ders its possessor beloved, was also his in a supreme 
degree: the aptitude for drawing out all that was 
best and worthiest of notice in others, of making 
those around him feel, as if it were not merely his 
wit alone, but theirs also that made the conversation 
brilliant. A rare gift indeed! For all will agree, 
that pleasant as it is to be in the society of clever 
people, pleasantest of all is to have to do with those, 
who make us feel cleverer ourselves while we talk 
to them! 



CHAPTER VIII 



PERTHES 

Oue stay in Bonn was, as I have already pointed 
out, enriched by the intercourse into which we were 
thrown with many clever and interesting people, 
some of whom became true and trusted friends. 
Thus it happened that in a peculiarly dark and 
trying hour, we found in Clement Perthes the best 
and wisest counsellor, an unfailing source of help 
and comfort. It was to his special care that my 
father had confided us all, when he set out on that 
ill-advised journey in pursuit of health, from which 
he was only to return far more seriously ill than 
before. The doctors counted on the complete 
change, on the pleasurable excitement of travel, 
above all on his withdrawal from depressing sur- 
roundings, on his being for a time removed from the 
sad spectacle of daily suffering in his own house- 
hold, as the best means of insuring his complete 
recovery. It was a well-meant, and carefully de- 
bated plan ; but like many another issue of mere hu- 
man wisdom, was not justified by events. How- 
ever, after long deliberation and with many misgiv- 
ings, my father was prevailed on to agree to the 
separation from wife and children for a whole year, 
setting out for America, accompanied by his young 
brother-in-law, Nicholas of Nassau. Brave as 
everyone struggled to be at parting, it was a most 
frightful wrench, and I remember seeing the tears 

139 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



stream from my mother's eyes, directly she fancied 
herself unobserved. From that moment, it was on 
Perthes that devolved the task of cheering the 
anxious hearts and raising the sinking spirits of 
those who had stayed behind. And well and wisely 
did he set to work. Not merely with his practical 
good sense and strong understanding, but above all 
according to the dictates of his good heart and warm 
human sympathies, did he fulfil the mission confided 
to him, and his kindness and tact, more even than 
his cleverness and knowledge, have the first claim 
on our gratitude. 

There was something exhilarating in the good 
humour that pervaded the whole person of Clement 
Perthes, a youthful, almost boyish love of mischief 
and fun, that was not belied by the expression of his 
eyes, narrow and obliquely set in the head, giving 
him somewhat of a Japanese cast of countenance. 
This fantastic appearance was increased by the 
strange fold or wrinkle beneath the eyes, deepening 
as he laughed and joked, while another line above 
the eyebrows seemed to impart a softer, almost 
feminine touch to the face, that was, however, neu- 
tralised by the determined expression of the thin 
lips. Everything seemed to furnish him with mat- 
ter for a jest, and he used to call me the "hundred- 
and-first," insisting upon it that out of a hundred 
other little girls of my age, not one could be found 
who was the least like myself. 

His children were our dearest playfellows. There 
were four sons and only one daughter, all of them 
good and amiable like their mother and himself, 

140 




H.M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania 



PERTHES 



but all of them dying young, to the unspeakable grief 
of the poor parents. It was hard indeed for them, 
to see their darlings go from them to the grave so 
young, but for these, for the children themselves, 
must they not afterwards often have blessed heaven 
in their hearts, that they should have been spared 
the misery inevitable to a longer sojourn on earth! 
The sons came often to us, and shared my brother 's 
games, but he could not join them at their studies, 
as they were so much older than himself and natu- 
rally much more advanced. A little companion was 
found, the son of Professor Dorner, to learn Latin 
with him, but he also was older and had the start, 
my brother being only just seven, rather young per- 
haps for such serious studies. It is true that Otto 
was able to begin Greek when he was seven, but then 
he was altogether exceptional, having a love of 
study, in addition to his excellent abilities. Besides 
the sister of the young Perthes, I had another 
favourite companion in a daughter of Professor Sell, 
a young girl so versed in the Ehineland folk-lore, she 
had an unfailing supply of the most delightful tales 
and legends, all of which were instantly turned into 
impromptu plays, and acted by us with the greatest 
spirit and zest. 

Nor was that special form of amusement confined 
to our school-room and our play hours; amateur 
theatricals of a more ambitious kind were a constant 
source of entertainment at the Vinea Domini, and 
afforded an opportunity for the display of some 
rather remarkable talent. In the first place there 
was my mother herself, an admirable performer, 

141 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

and at the same time the most severe, most merci- 
less of stage-managers. She would think nothing 
of having a scene rehearsed sixty times, till it went 
to her satisfaction. She was admirably seconded by 
the bevy of charming young girls that gathered 
round her — her own younger sisters, her niece of 
Solms-Laubach, the daughter of an intimate friend, 
the diplomatist, Heinrich von Arnim, and the two 
sisters von Preen, of whom the one was her own and 
the other her step-mother's lady-in-waiting. All 
these thronged, happy and light-hearted, round my 
mother, vying with one another in the effort to win 
her approbation. Sometimes there were most amus- 
ing scenes, that were not played on the mimic stage, 
as for instance that which I myself witnessed, of my 
cousin and Else Arnim sitting on the floor, one 
on each side of my mother's chair, disputing till 
they cried, as to which of them loved her best ! And 
my mother cried too, with laughter ! But whatever 
her own mood, well or ill herself, she never relaxed 
her efforts to provide wholesome and interesting 
entertainment for all these young people, and in 
everything she undertook Perthes was the most 
efficient auxiliary, as well as the surest adviser in 
any dilemma. Himself a professor at the univer- 
sity and resident in Bonn for many years, he was 
well acquainted with every section of society, and 
none could have been more competent than he, to 
advise her as to the selection of the elements from 
which her own circle should be composed. It was 
her desire to admit to her house every one posses- 
sing any claim to personal distinction, above all to 

142 



PERTHES 



pre-eminence in the world of science, of letters and 
art. Among the younger men, those who were at 
that time studying at the university, how many there 
were who have since played a conspicuous part in 
the drama of European history! For the moment 
they were content to display their talents in the 
little theatre of the Vinea Domini. The drawing- 
room was divided, the one-half being converted into 
a stage, while in the other sat an audience composed 
in great part of scholars of note, all the learned 
dons and doctors of the university, — no mean tri- 
bunal certainly to sit in judgment on the perform- 
ance. The actors had, however, little to fear even 
if judged by the most exacting standard, the histri- 
onic ability of some of these young people being of 
a very high order, and they were well drilled in 
their parts, and the rehearsals superintended by 
the mistress of the house, until everything reached 
an unwonted pitch of perfection. In the pretty 
comedy of the "King's Lieutenant " the leading part 
was played by George Bunsen in a style that left 
no room for criticism. Years after I saw the 
famous actor, Haase, as Thorane, but I cannot see 
that the professional comedian in any way excelled 
the amateur in the part. That of Goethe, the youth- 
ful Goethe, in the same play, was taken by Prince 
Reuss, who looked the sixteen-year-old poet to the 
life, and the parents were impersonated by Prince 
Frederick William of Prussia as Privy- Councillor 
Goethe and Fraulein von Preen as the majestic 
Privy-Councilloress. The future Emperor Freder- 
ick was just a little stiff in his acting, hence the 

143 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



staid part of the elderly man had been given him, 
bnt all played delightfully, the younger Fraulein 
von Preen also making a most successful entrance 
as the girl who runs in with her market basket on 
her arm. Some evenings only charades were repre- 
sented, and on others tableaux vivants, in both of 
which the commanding officer of the Hussars, Count 
Oriola, a remarkably handsome man, was generally 
the most striking figure. I remember how splendid 
he looked as a brigand-chief, with one of my young 
aunts, afterwards Princess Waldeck, as his wife. 
He had married one of the daughters of Bettina von 
Arnim, but it is in some cases little more than a 
name or the vague outline of some person seen in 
my mother's drawing-room that I can call to mind. 
It may even appear surprising, that I should remem- 
ber so much, as I was only eight years old at the 
time I speak of, but my recollections do in truth go 
much further back, as the following incident will 
show: 

It concerns the departure of my little brother's 
wet-nurse, which took place when I could not have 
been more than two years and a half old. She was 
so unhappy at leaving, and wept so bitterly while 
being shown the big pile of house-linen which my 
mother gave her as a present, I thought I would 
find something better to console her, and rushing off 
to the nursery, I returned with one of my dearest 
possessions, a little doll's tea-kettle, which I tried 
to thrust into her hand. I can see distinctly her 
look of amazement, as she smiled through her tears, 
and hear the tone of my mother's voice, saying, — 

144 



PERTHES 



"But what good can that be to her?" I felt as if 
I had had a bucket of cold water thrown over me, 
and I turned away with my treasure, disappointed 
and mortified at the fruitlessness of my good inten- 
tions. So I kept my poor little tea-kettle, and in 
course of time my own child played with it, as with 
many of my dolls and other playthings, with such 
affection had they been preserved. I may surely 
claim to have ever shown fidelity to the past, and as 
for my memory, I might liken it to lava, on which 
every impression from without, stamping itself at 
white-heat, is indelibly engraven for all time. 

How well I remember the melancholy Christmas 
we spent that year in Bonn without my father, his 
absence taking all the joy out of the festival, in spite 
of my mother's efforts to prevent the happiness of 
others being dimmed by her own sadness. It was 
the very moment when the American mail was due, 
and on Christmas Eve we waited and waited, every- 
one hoping that at least the amount of gladness a 
letter could give might still be hers. And the last 
post did bring the expected missives, the well-known 
thin, pale blue envelopes, which Fraulein von Preen 
quickly tied on with red ribbons to the Christmas- 
tree. But at the sight of the handwriting my mother 
fairly broke down, and it was some time before she 
had recovered her composure sufficiently to collect, 
as was her habit, the whole household, children, 
friends, and the old servants round her, to listen 
with rapt attention to the interesting description 
of scenes in the New World which those pages con- 
tained. 

10 145 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



Simple as it might at first sight appear, there is 
perhaps nothing so difficult as clearly to convey by 
words a picture of any human existence. Difficult 
enough it must be in any case, oneself to gain a clear 
conception of the real person, but how much more 
so to make the written portrait a true likeness. So 
indomitable was my mother's courage, so thoroughly 
did the natural elasticity of her temperament en- 
able her to rise superior to every trial, many of her 
acquaintance might well see in her only the charm- 
ing, clever and accomplished woman, the life and 
soul of the brilliant society she loved to gather round 
her, and which her own personality seemed so hap- 
pily fitted to lead and dominate. But there was 
another, sadder side to her existence, no less real 
for being revealed alone to the members of her 
family and more intimate friends. 

Exercising the same powers of attraction alike on 
young and old, and in her own person combining the 
keenest interest in every intellectual problem with 
a remarkable capacity for entering into any form 
of innocent mirth, the young mistress of the Vinea 
Domini was able to control and blend the different 
elements of her little society, to a harmony complete 
and pleasing to all. Eepresentative men in science 
and art, in literature and politics, met there to dis- 
cuss topics of gravest import; every talent found 
welcome recognition. What pretty water-colour 
sketches were made by the young Prince Eeuss, 
whose long and eventful diplomatic career none yet 
foresaw! "When, later on, I came across the draw- 
ings he had made of us children, I had a surprise 

146 



PERTHES 



similar to that told in a preceding chapter, to see 
the melancholy expression I wore, bnt was assured 
by my mother that I did indeed often look thns. I 
struggled so perpetually to appear cheerful, I could 
hardly believe that anyone could have seen me look- 
ing sad; we keep count of the efforts we make, but 
cannot judge of the results we achieve. Of the 
Shakespeare readings, and lectures upon Shake- 
speare, given by Professor Lobell at our house, I can 
only speak from hearsay, for I was not present, but 
all the hearers pronounced them admirable, and I 
was sorry to be excluded, my curiosity being stimu- 
lated by the passages my mother had read to me 
from some of the plays, and I had wept bitterly over 
the pathetic scenes concerning poor little Prince 
Arthur. I was, however, sometimes allowed to make 
one of the party in the excursions down the Ehine, 
and I listened, now with delight to the melodious 
part-songs, now wondering, and storing up in my 
mind fragments of the animated discourse — on every 
subject, it seemed to me, of highest interest in 
heaven or earth — with which the boat's joyous pas- 
sengers filled up the intervals of their singing. To 
draw others into conversation and lead them to im- 
part their deepest thoughts, was one of my mother 's 
special gifts. Young as she was, her mind had been 
early matured by sorrow, and she could associate 
herself as easily with the aims and aspirations of 
artists and scholars as with the plans of statesmen 
and politicians. The speculative curiosity of men 
of science ever had a peculiar fascination for her, 
and she was no less receptive for schemes of benevo- 

147 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



lence and philanthropy. All phases of contem- 
porary thought, all shades of opinion, were repre- 
sented in her drawing-room, together with the harm- 
less mirth, the love of amusement of the junior 
portion of the assembly. Never, however, in their 
moments of most reckless high spirits, did any of 
these young folk overstep the bounds of the strictest 
decorum and good taste. Had there been any such 
danger, a word, a look from my mother — nay, the 
mere presence of my grandmother, in her quiet 
stately dignity, would have sufficed to call the 
offender to order. The power can scarcely be 
over-rated, which well-bred and high-minded women 
may exercise over their surroundings. Nor had it 
yet been admitted as a possibility in good society, 
for young men to allow themselves to take the liber- 
ties of which in a modern drawing-room, they are 
too often guilty towards their hostesses. Once, on 
a lovely summer's night, two or three scions of 
princely houses among the students took it into 
their heads to serenade my mother from the river; 
but when next day, to their timid enquiry how she 
had liked the music, they received the chilling reply 
that she had certainly heard a noise, but thought it 
must be some drunken people returning home, their 
crestfallen looks showed that they would not venture 
to repeat the experiment. 

In this light then, of the woman of varied interests 
and far-reaching influence did my mother appear to 
the world at large. It was reserved for her inti- 
mates, for her children and attendants, to see her in 
the hours of despondency, racked with pain, and tor- 

148 



PERTHES 



tured still more by the gravest fears for the safety 
of her distant husband and of the child whose life 
seemed ever but to hang upon a thread. To those 
who knew of her sleepless nights, of her own bodily 
sufferings, and anxiety on behalf of others, she 
might well appear rather under the aspect of a 
martyr, bowed down by a load of physical and 
mental anguish, that must in time wear out her 
powers of resistance. She believed herself con- 
stantly to be at the point of death, and those around 
her often shared her fears. — "Let yourself cry, you 
have only too good reason for your tears!" was all 
our good old doctor could find to say to her by way 
of comfort, one day when he surprised her sobbing 
in despair. 

In every emergency, whether he were called upon 
for practical advice, or simply to cheer and console 
when the cloud of sorrow seemed well-nigh over- 
powering, Perthes proved himself, as my father had 
foreseen, the kindest and most invaluable of friends. 
Even friendship, however, was powerless to soften 
the blow, when after the long separation, the months 
of weary waiting and intense anxiety, the travellers 
returned, for it but to become evident to my mother 
at the first glance at my father's pale face and 
wasted form, that the good results hoped for from 
the voyage were far from being realised. It seemed 
indeed at first sight to have only done him harm, 
for he was thinner than ever, with hollow cheeks 
and sunken eyes, suffering moreover from tempo- 
rary surdity, after-effect of an acute attack of in- 
flammation of the ear, by which he had been laid up 

149 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



at New Orleans. To him the shock, the disappoint- 
ment can have been no less severe, to find poor little 
Otto 's condition so mnch worse, whilst my mother 's 
state of health seemed also well nigh past hope. It 
was a melancholy return home. As the travellers 
approached the porch, towards which my mother's 
chair had been wheeled to meet them, the shouts of 
welcome sent up by the men-servants assembled on 
the steps, the waving of their plumed caps in the air 
at their master's approach, all this semblance of 
rejoicing died away in a general feeling of conster- 
nation, in the mute exchange of glances of dismay, 
in the unspoken dread of that which should come 
next. 

Had we but known then, in that darkest, saddest 
hour, that help was already at hand, standing there 
ready to cross the threshold, when the need should 
be greatest ! 




H.M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania 



CHAPTER IX 



A FAITH-HEALER 

It was in those days that there suddenly came 
wafted to us across the ocean the tidings of a won- 
drous discovery, a strange new pursuit for pastime, 
— I scarce know what to call it, — a new method of 
healing and new branch of scientific research, some 
would say, though certainly in this last particular 
it has not yet justified its claims to be admitted to 
rank as a science, but has like that other dark mys- 
terious agent, electricity, of which we also know so 
little, to this day advanced but little beyond the 
infantile stage. Animal magnetism, table-turning, 
spirit-rapping, thought-reading and psychography, 
each and all of these names have been used in turn 
to designate the various manifestations of this 
hitherto unknown, or it may be merely neglected 
and forgotten force. 

Now with regard to the phenomena I am about 
to describe, there could perhaps scarce be a more 
accurate and trustworthy witness than a child of 
nine years, absolutely healthy in mind and body, 
and bringing the quick observation and clear un- 
troubled gaze of childhood to bear on these strange 
occurrences, without preconceived leanings towards 
belief or doubt, and even probably with a little less 
curiosity than might have belonged to one a few 
years older. To so young a child, the whole world 
is a subject of perpetual awe and wonder, nearly 

151 ; 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

every incident in its daily experience being start- 
ling and inexplicable, yet all accepted alike in the 
same spirit of implicit good faith. Was there then 
after all, in these new occurrences that set everyone 
talking, anything so much more wonderful than in 
a hundred others with which we were already famil- 
iar? Were we not acquainted with the miracle of 
the caterpillar's metamorphosis to the butterfly, of 
the transformation of the blossom into fruit? And 
could there be anything at once more natural and 
more terrible than those frightful spasms that 
racked my mother's whole frame, paralysing every 
movement of her limbs? That this never struck us 
as anything unusual or uncommon was shown by my 
answer to another little girl, who had asked me to 
suggest a new game. — "Let us play at being mother 
and child,' 1 I promptly replied, "and you shall be 
the mother, and must sit still in this chair, as you 
cannot walk about. ' ' And I was honestly surprised 
both at my little companion's astonishment and also 
to hear my mother's voice calling to me from the 
next room, enquiring if I thought that a nice sort 
of game, to be making fun of my mother's ill-health? 
I was dreadfully discomfited, but I had meant no 
harm at all, it simply arose from the impossibility 
of dissociating in my own mind the idea of one's 
mother from that of being lame. I had seen too 
how completely medical science had been at fault, 
just with those of my own family who had been 
obliged to have recourse to the doctors' skill, one 
celebrated practitioner after another having tried 
in vain to bring about some improvement in my 

152 



A FAITH -HEALER 

father's health, or to find out a course of treatment 
that should alleviate my mother's sufferings, and 
bring some relief to the constant pain that made 
my younger brother's life a martyrdom. It was 
perhaps the reiterated failure of any of the old 
recognised methods to work a cure, that rendered 
us all quite free from prejudice against the preten- 
sions of outsiders, and hearing so much said of 
the wonderful cures wrought by magnetism, I felt 
no surprise when I learnt that it was to be tried in 
my mother's case. Soon the professional mag- 
netiser appeared upon the scene, in the person of a 
very stout Englishwoman with beady black eyes, to 
whom my brothers and I immediately took an in- 
tense dislike, on account of her appearance and her 
very disagreeable manner towards us. Her skill 
did procure for my mother a little of the rest she 
stood so much in need of, as the operator could by 
means of the magnetic passes, or even by merely 
laying her hand on the patient's forehead, send her 
for hours into a deep sleep, from which she could 
not awake of her own accord. But the fact that the 
magnetiser had, as she boasted, herself brought 
fifteen children into the world, had not apparently 
imbued her with very tender feelings towards chil- 
dren in general, and the influence she was not slow 
in acquiring over her patient she so thoroughly 
abused in tyrannising over us, that we three cor- 
dially detested her, and were thankful when a too 
glaring usurpation of authority led to her summary 
dismissal. Her brief stay in our midst had, how- 
ever, awakened among us all the desire to ascertain 

153 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

by similar experiments, what latent magnetic power 
might possibly reside in some of us, and it was 
very soon shown that my uncle, Nicholas of Nassau, 
was possessed of a quite exceptional degree of the 
mesmeric or hypnotic force, which he, a lively, 
thoughtless youth of twenty, did not scruple to use 
for all sorts of practical jokes. A favourite one 
was to prevent his sister's governess from getting 
up out of her chair ; do what she would, she was as 
if nailed down to it whenever he chose to forbid 
her to rise, and he would even sometimes mount 
his horse and ride away for a couple of hours, deaf 
to the entreaties and adjurations of his victim. An- 
other time he ordered her to put out her tongue, in 
the midst of a ceremonious Court dinner, and almost 
crying with indignation, she was forced to obey. 
His sisters found it equally impossible to disobey 
whatever extravagant commands he might lay on 
them, such as forcing my mother to stand still hold- 
ing out her hand whilst he threatened to aim a heavy 
blow at it with his riding-whip. Such displays of 
his extraordinary and inexplicable powers afforded 
great amusement to himself and others, above all 
to the child spectators, who laughed heartily to see 
their elders for once reduced to such submissiveness. 
It was therefore a sad disappointment to us when, 
in consequence of the fits of hysterics into which 
one or two ladies had been thrown by some of my 
uncled pranks, he was obliged to desist from them. 
We little ones had enjoyed them the more, that he 
never tried them on us, from whom it would indeed 
have been superfluous to exact obedience in this 

154 



A FAITH -HEALER 



fashion, trained as we were to carry out unquestion- 
ingly and with military promptness and exactitude, 
whatever orders were given us. For this was in the 
old days, when it seemed to be a recognised thing, 
that children had come into the world just to do 
what they were told, and learn whatever was taught 
them! Nobody thought of asking them if they 
found it a tedious restraint to behave properly, nor 
were they consulted as to whether their lessons 
bored them. If in my youthful days, for instance, 
I played badly in my piano-lesson, it was so much the 
worse for me, as I soon found out, when the music- 
master had gone. As for over-pressure, the word 
had not been invented then, and nervous fatigue, 
hysteria and neurasthenia, with all of which the 
modern child is familiar, had not yet been heard of. 
Our elders certainly themselves set us a good ex- 
ample in all such respects, and I can remember the 
severe animadversion passed on the poor degenerate 
creatures who first indulged in the above unbecom- 
ing weaknesses. All through her married life my 
grandmother had to stand every evening with her 
ladies, in full dress upright beside the billiard-table, 
to watch her lord and master's play, and neither she 
nor anyone else dared to be tired or feel bored, until 
the match was finished. Or perhaps it would be 
more correct to say that people in those days knew 
how to be bored to death with the utmost decorum ! 
There were no comfortable easy-chairs to lean back 
in; if one sat down at all, it was bolt upright on a 
chair of most uncompromising severity. For our 
lessons we had very hard high wooden chairs, from 

155 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



which our poor little legs dangled till they ached, 
very different from the nice comfortable schoolroom 
chairs with their foot-rest, which children have now. 
And worst of all, there was the dreadful invention 
for deportment, a horrible heart-shaped contrivance, 
of iron covered with leather, into which we were 
strapped to make ns hold ourselves upright. To 
my indescribable humiliation, I was sometimes 
obliged to go for a walk with the odious machine 
fastened to my back. Even this seemed quite mild 
though, compared to the means employed in a for- 
mer generation, one of my great-aunts being able to 
tell of the spiked collar, which in addition to the 
iron back-board, she was forced to wear, to prevent 
her from ever allowing her head to droop. Was it 
the effect of this instrument of torture, that in her 
ninetieth year, she had never been known to lean 
back in her chair? 

Out of this hard training, of this undue repression, 
and as a natural consequence too of the incessant 
cupping and bleeding, practised on the former gen- 
eration as a remedy for all existent and non-existent 
maladies, there came forth another, debilitated, un- 
nerved, an easy prey to the whole host of nervous 
disorders lying in wait for it. I have lived through 
and looked on at every phase of the transformation. 
Healthy as I was, I should hardly have escaped the 
drastic measures to which the so-called plethoric 
were subjected, had it not been sufficiently proved 
that their application had been injurious rather than 
beneficial to my mother. The immense strides made 
by medical science of recent years, make it difficult 

156 



A FAITH - HEALER 



to judge rightly the mental attitude of those, who 
in their impatience of the inanity and futility of 
orthodox treatment, seem formerly to have wel- 
comed and blindly followed the advice of every 
quack, calling himself a mesmeriser. We should be 
slower to condemn them, had we also suffered from 
the ignorance and incompetence of the regular prac- 
titioner, and perhaps be equally willing to sign a 
pact with the Evil One and his agents, in order to 
regain the blessing of health ! It was this tendency 
that led to the first great disappointment of my life, 
which I experienced when I was only five years old, 
in the following manner: 

I had a little birth-mark on my left cheek, which 
was a great source of vexation to my parents, no- 
body understanding in those days how to remove 
anything of the sort. They were therefore all the 
more readily disposed to put faith in the assertion 
of a wandering charlatan, of his ability to make it 
disappear. I was fetched from my lessons by my 
father, placed in a chair, and the stranger pro- 
ceeded to apply a dark fluid from a little phial to 
the spot, assuring my parents that when this had 
dried up, they would find on its removal no trace 
of the mole left. Somehow or other I had under- 
stood that by means of this magical process, I should 
never be naughty again. As might be expected, 
when the stain of the fluid was washed away, the 
mole was there just as before, with a slight scar 
into the bargain, and I was as naughty as ever! 
That was my first real big disappointment. The 
next came when I was six, with my first glimpse 

157 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



of the sea. When we reached the shore to go on 
board the boat, it was low tide, and instead of the 
wide far-reaching plain of water I was prepared to 
see, there was nothing but sand, with a few pools. 
To my mother's apostrophe, — i ' Look, Elizabeth! 
there is the sea ! ' 7 I could not find a word to say in 
reply, I was too bitterly disappointed. I had ex- 
pected to behold a great towering wall of water, like 
that I was familiar with in the pictures of the cross- 
ing of the Eed Sea by the Children of Israel. And 
here was nothing but sand, with a few wretched 
pools! Afterwards I saw the great expanse of 
water, always in movement, and stretching out far 
away, but it was too late then, the first impression 
was over and all was spoilt. The third disappoint- 
ment came much later, at first sight of Eome, and 
does not belong here. 

To return to my story. In one of my uncle's 
letters from America, he told us of his visit to a 
house, where the guests were all amusing themselves 
by setting a table in motion by simply letting their 
hands rest lightly on it, as they stood round. It had 
interested him, but he had not been able to induce 
my father to take any part in the proceedings, the 
latter declining even to countenance such nonsense, 
declaring himself the enemy of every sort of hum- 
bug. At home, on the contrary, curiosity was im- 
mediately aroused, our former experience with the 
magnetiser and the discovery of my uncle 's marvel- 
lous powers, having to a certain extent initiated 
us into the mysteries of the occult. Young and old, 
children and grown-up people, we were all pressed 

158 



A FAITH -HEALER 

into the service, and were soon all standing in a ring 
round a very big table, our hands resting on it, so 
that one's little ringer touched that of one's neigh- 
bour on either side. Thus we stood and waited, with 
some impatience, and a good deal of inward merri- 
ment, to see what would occur. Just as we were get- 
ting thoroughly disheartened and tired out, a tiny 
tremor was felt in the table, which then, in spite of 
its great weight, actually began to move from the 
spot. Naturally, each one accused the other of 
pushing, but that explanation would have been 
neither satisfactory nor admissible, standing as we 
were with our hands in full view of one another, so 
that no attempt at cheating could have passed un- 
perceived. And our astonishment was increased 
when we observed how when my mother was wheeled 
into the room, she had but to lay her finger ever so 
lightly on the table, for it at once to begin to move 
quicker, even setting off to rush about in all direc- 
tions, so that she had to be pushed after it in her 
chair. We all followed, with peals of laughter at 
the strange sight, the ungainly movements of this 
new sort of dancing-bear, and so much amusement 
did this afford, that we set to work at once to experi- 
ment on all sorts of other inanimate objects. We 
soon found that all were not in the same degree 
susceptible of locomotion, nor were all human be- 
ings equally endowed with the latent force by which 
automatic movement could be imparted to things 
usually inert. Count Oriola proved to be the pos- 
sessor of a quite exceptional degree of this psychic 
or magnetic force; he had only to stretch out his 

159 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



hand within a few paces of a small table, and it im- 
mediately came marching towards him, apparently 
with great glee, to onr inexpressible delight, bnt to 
the unspeakable horror of my governess, from whose 
sitting-room the table had been borrowed, and who 
energetically refused to receive such an impish piece 
of furniture back again! 

Not only tables, but chairs, sofas, all sorts of 
things seemed now suddenly to have become capable 
of walking about; it was even told of a young girl 
staying in our house, that holding her hand over a 
big glass shade that covered a clock, to her surprise 
the shade lifted itself up in the air to reach her 
hand, and remained for a time firmly fixed to it. 
Naturally enough, the thing being once admitted in 
principle, its possibility established beyond a doubt, 
there were no bounds, no limits to our curiosity, 
and every other form of amusement was cast into 
the background by this. It was much more inter- 
esting than simple mesmerising, and instead of be- 
ing like that confined to an experiment on one person 
at a time, in this all could take part. We moreover 
obtained the proof that the force by which these 
results were obtained, was not entirely confined to 
certain more highly-favoured individuals, but lay in 
some degree latent in everyone, and could be im- 
mensely developed by practice. Nor was this ever 
attended with the least inconvenience to the experi- 
menter, an effort of the will, a certain tension and 
concentration of mind, being the chief conditions of 
success. It was, however, also of great moment that 
such experiments should be undertaken in a proper 

160 



A FAITH- HEALER 



spirit, i.e., seriously, with a real desire to investigate 
their nature and to turn them to the advantage of 
one's fellow-beings, for we soon noticed that those 
who treated the matter as a mere joke, approach- 
ing it in a frivolous mood, generally failed in all 
they attempted. As might be expected, the persons 
whose fund of magnetism was most considerable, 
proved also to be those who could most easily induce 
in others the magnetic trance. All seemed to re- 
solve itself into that one process of mental concen- 
tration, and someone remarked that this word 
■ ' concentration ' 9 was the one most often heard, and 
that formulated the rule of life and scheme of edu- 
cation in our family. Perhaps I owe it to the habit 
acquired then, that I am never absent-minded, but 
always able to concentrate my thoughts on the mat- 
ter in hand, and taking into consideration my lively 
imagination, I think this may be looked upon as 
an educational triumph ! 

Whilst "concentration" was thus the order of the 
day among us, it happened that my mother heard 
of the marvellous cures, recalling those told of in 
the Bible, being worked in Paris by a "Faith- 
healer," as we should certainly now call him, since 
they were effected by no other means than the simple 
laying-on of hands. One of the patients then under 
treatment, and making rapid progress, was Schleier- 
macher's daughter, Countess Schwerin, whose case 
so nearly resembled my mother's own, that the latter 
could not refrain from writing to tell my father all 
she had heard, with the result that on his way home 
from America he stopped in Paris, to make further 
11 161 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



enquiries. He called on the magnetiser, whose 
name was Count Szapary, and begged him to under- 
take my mother's case. This request met at first 
with a decided refusal, it being impossible for him, 
the Count stated, to abandon for a new patient the 
many now being treated by him, these being, more- 
over, already so numerous that he could not think 
of adding to them. He did, however, in the end 
so far modify his refusal, as to promise that in the 
course of a journey he was about to take, and which 
should lead him Ehinewards, he would certainly 
pay my mother a visit, and see what could be done 
for her. 

Three days had not yet passed over our heads in 
Bonn since my father's return, when the little gar- 
den gate was suddenly flung open by a stranger of 
distinguished presence — in spite of a slight limp 
(the result, we afterwards learned, of a carriage 
accident, some time previous, in Hungary) — and in 
whose thick dark moustache the first silvery threads 
were beginning to appear, though not yet in the 
rather long and wavy thick dark hair, a lock of 
which, escaping, was continually falling over his 
forehead. My father went forward to meet this gen- 
tleman, whom he introduced as Count Szapary, and 
who brought the scrutinising glance of his big black 
eyes to bear on our little group, with but little, at 
first sight it seemed, of the kindly smile which on 
better intimacy lit up his face so constantly. His 
own wonderful powers, which he was now bent on 
using for the good of mankind, had been revealed 
to him by chance, some might call it, in reality by 

162 



A FAITH- HEALER 

his despairing efforts to procure by mesmerism the 
boon of sleep and respite from pain for an invalid 
daughter, given up by the regular doctor. To his 
glad astonishment, not only did the magnetic passes 
send the patient into a refreshing slumber, but a 
repetition of the experiment was equally successful, 
and, being persevered with, in time restored her to 
health. In his gratitude for his child's life being 
spared, the father determined to use his gift hence- 
forth for the benefit of others, and in order to culti- 
vate it systematically, he went to Paris to study 
medicine for a time, and establishing himself there, 
the cures wrought by him were very soon widely 
talked of. There was a minute of suspense as the 
thoughtful, enquiring glance rested on my mother, 
and we trembled lest the objections urged against 
my father's pleadings in Paris should still be main- 
tained. But at that critical moment, poor little Otto 
happened to join us, and again the sharp restless 
eyes travelled from the sorely tried young mother 
to the unhappy child, and back again to the pale, 
emaciated father, already in a rapid decline, and all 
hesitation was at an end. The spectacle of so much 
suffering was decisive for the man whose whole life 
was given up to alleviating human misery. Without 
further demur he agreed to devote his time, his 
skill, to the case before him. "But," he hastened 
to add, after a rapid examination of his patient, 
"your life I can perhaps save, more I cannot say, I 
cannot promise that you will ever recover the use 
of your limbs!" And indeed at that time it looked 
as if the one leg were completely atrophied, it was 

163 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



as if withered — literally reduced to skin and bone. 
When our new friend took his leave, it was with the 
promise to return in a very few weeks' time, to 
accompany us himself to Paris, as he feared that 
without him my mother might not even survive the 
journey. 

So we set out for Paris, my brother Wilhelm and 
I in one railway compartment with tutor and gover- 
ness, Otto in another for himself with his faithful 
attendant, our good old nurse, and my mother in 
hers, in the hammock slung for her, with my father 
and Fraulein von Preen close at hand, and Count 
Szapary standing beside her, steadying the ham- 
mock with the one hand, whilst with the other he con- 
tinued uninterruptedly making the mesmeric passes, 
to still the frightful paroxysms of pain, which almost 
threatened to prove fatal during the journey. Ter- 
rible as it was, it yet differed from former journeys 
undertaken under like circumstances, in the absence 
of the overpowering smell of chloral, ether, and 
other medicaments, for all such were from this mo- 
ment abolished and never heard of more. It was 
not astonishing, when we did arrive safely and were 
installed in the house taken for us in the Champs 
Elysees, that directly he had seen his patient car- 
ried upstairs and put to bed, Count Szapary should 
have sought his own room, and falling exhausted on 
his bed, have slept on without waking for ten hours. 

Next day began the treatment — no easy matter, 
as my mother's extreme weakness made it necessary 
to proceed with the utmost precaution, and Count 
Szapary afterwards owned that he had more than 

164 



A FAITH- HEALER 

once feared that she might die while undergoing it. 
But he persevered, and was rewarded at the end of 
six months by perceiving a faint twitching in the 
toes of the till then apparently lifeless foot. "Ah! 
you will be able to walk again after all!" he ex- 
claimed in his delight, and continued the massage 
so vigorously and to such good purpose, that life 
seemed to return gradually to the whole of the 
paralysed limb, and in the course of a few weeks 
the patient could actually take a few steps. Only a 
very few at first, leaning on her companion's arm, 
and with the tears streaming down her cheeks with 
the effort and the pain, sometimes severe enough 
to make her faint away before it was over. But 
through it all she could see us watching her, the 
first time she was taken into the garden, and she 
told us afterwards of our anxious faces, mine flushed 
with excitement as I ran towards her, whilst Wil- 
helm turned deadly pale as he tried to move away 
every little pebble in her way in the path. Then, 
a few days later, Otto also was allowed to look on, 
and for him it was something even more solemn and 
wonderful, for it was the first time in his life that 
he had seen his mother able to walk a step. With- 
out a word he went up to her, took her by the 
hand, and walked slowly beside her the whole time, 
in perfect silence. For all of us it was the grandest 
and most impressive event of our whole childhood, 
something that seemed to partake of the nature of a 
miracle, and that brought the stories of miraculous 
cures in times of old quite near to us, making them 
a more living reality than to most people, since we 

165 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



had ourselves with our own eyes witnessed some- 
thing similar in the person of one so near and dear 
to us. It will readily be believed, that our admira- 
tion and gratitude for him who had wrought this 
marvel knew no bounds. To say that we looked 
upon him as a saint, seems but a feeble expression 
of the feeling of veneration with which we regarded 
him. 

Of the actual working of the cure, of the mode of 
treatment, we saw nothing, and heard but little ; I 
only know that little by little, the terrible convul- 
sions were transformed into regular exercise of the 
muscles, in fact into an involuntary process of thera- 
peutic gymnastics. In course of time, not only was 
the cure complete, but her own fund of natural 
magnetism had been discovered to be so exceptional, 
that my mother was anxious to celebrate her restora- 
tion to health by performing a like good work for 
others, and began visiting Count Szapary's other 
patients with him, undertaking a portion of the 
treatment. At her pressing invitation the lame 
Fraulein von Bunsen came to stay with us, and 
thanks to the combined efforts of my mother and 
Count Szapary, she also was set on her feet again 
and able to walk after being for five-and-twenty 
years considered beyond all hope of recovery ! 

For my mother it was the beginning of a new life 
in more meanings than one, for it was now her turn, 
after her own miraculous cure, to cultivate and turn 
to account in the service of humanity, the gift be- 
stowed upon her unawares. She perhaps never be- 
came quite so strong as had been at first hoped, 

166 



A FAITH- HEALER 

and, in fact, she often felt far from well, but the 
lameness never returned. And it very soon became 
clearly established, that the possession of magnetic 
force by no means corresponds to our physical 
strength or indeed to our bodily health. Concern- 
ing this, very thorough investigations were made 
by my father, who would not have tolerated the idea 
of anything being done by his wife which could pos- 
sibly have been harmful to her own health. On that 
point there could be no shadow of doubt; our ex- 
periments in mesmerising and table-turning furnish- 
ing constant examples of the presence of these 
powers in a transcendent degree in persons of spe- 
cially fragile build and constitutional delicacy. It 
was just by these that feats were accomplished, 
which would not merely have taxed their ordinary 
strength, but would have been impossible to the 
strongest man. All this will no longer seem so 
very surprising at the present day, but the period I 
deal with is of fifty years ago, when these marvels 
were not yet subjects of common parlance. No 
Charcot had yet made his experiments with sugges- 
tion and hypnotism; indeed, the very names were 
scarcely known. My father, who was so little in- 
clined to credulity that friends and relations had 
dubbed him the unbelieving Thomas, gave himself 
up to the serious study of the question. His natu- 
rally philosophic bent found here ample matter for 
reflection. "I have not the dogmatic arrogance," 
he was accustomed to say, " which would enable me 
to deny the existence of phenomena, simply because 
I fail to comprehend them ! ' ' Investigating them in 

167 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

this spirit, from the purely scientific point of view, 
he acquired the conviction that they were manifesta- 
tions of an inner life, the proof of a persistence of 
thought independent of cerebral cognition, and he 
therefore gave to the book he wrote on the subject, 
the title, "Subconscious Mental Life." I am aware 
that the theory he upheld is now much contested, 
that there are those who, while they do not dispute 
the genuineness of the manifestations, would ascribe 
them to quite another cause, looking upon them as of 
purely objective nature, and entirely independent 
of the medium. Time alone can decide which of 
these two schools of psychical research is the better 
justified. Then, at all events, it had not yet 
occurred to any of us to seek the explanation of these 
phenomena from without, everything appearing 
sufficiently to demonstrate their origin in our own 
mentality; a belief which did not, however, in the 
least preclude our full recognition of the superiority 
of the results achieved, to all similar performances 
by the same individual in the normal state. Our 
experiments were now no longer confined to mere 
spirit-rapping or observations made on subjects dur- 
ing the mesmeric trance; they were henceforth spe- 
cially directed to psychography, and with the most 
gratifying results. It was perhaps the manifes- 
tations in this higher sphere which overcame the last 
barriers of my father's incredulity; the simple 
manner in which they were obtained, by means of a 
pencil, passed through a large woollen ball, on which 
two persons placed their hands, absolutely prevent- 
ing any possibility of fraud. Very often he made 

168 



A FAITH - HEALER 



the experiment himself, together with one other per- 
son, generally a yonng girl whose store of mag- 
netism was known to be above the average, and he 
was able thus to convince himself that the move- 
ments of the pencil, tracing characters with light- 
ning rapidity in its course across the paper, were 
entirely independent of human agency. 

Questions of deepest import were asked, answers 
on subjects either of private or of general interest 
obtained, and many a philosophic doubt laid to rest, 
by this spirit-writing. And these messages, I can- 
not sufficiently repeat, seemed to have as a rule little 
in common with the mental powers or culture of the 
person through whom they were transmitted, being 
on an altogether different plane, a higher intel- 
lectual level than that of society in general. Cer- 
tainly no means was neglected of raising the tone 
of conversation among the ever-widening circle of 
friends who assembled for these seances; all frivo- 
lous chatter was banished, gossip was a thing utterly 
unknown, and it is hardly too much to say, that it 
was in a well-nigh religious spirit that most of us 
gathered round the table on which the manifesta- 
tions took place. Among the guests in our house, 
was the aged musician, Neukomm, and very often, 
as a preliminary to the evening's proceedings, he 
would seat himself at the organ, and by a soft and 
solemn prelude would induce in all present a frame 
of mind suitable to the solemnity of the occasion. 
As I was now in my twelfth year, and my mind un- 
usually developed for my age, I was allowed to par- 
ticipate in all that went on. Above all, I loved to 

169 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



hear my father talk of those philosophic questions 
that occupied his own thoughts, and it was from this 
time that dated the delightful long walks we took 
together, in which he instructed me in the history of 
philosophy, explaining to me the various philo- 
sophic systems, and reading to me passages from his 
own writings, thereby giving me my first insight 
into the metaphysical problems in which his soul 
took refuge from the noise and bustle of the world. 
His dream it doubtless was, to make of me a philoso- 
pher like himself, and his enthusiasm and earnest- 
ness could not fail to arouse my interest in the 
themes on which he waxed so eloquent; but my own 
bent was a different one — the field of metaphysical 
speculation, as thrown open to me by my beloved 
and revered father, might well entice my spirit 
awhile, — my sojourn there could be but brief, it was 
in another dreamland I was eventually to find my 
home, and already, unknown to everyone, I had 
made my first excursions, my first timid flights 
within those realms. Everything I heard, every- 
thing I saw, each fresh addition to my store of 
knowledge, each wonderful revelation of the world 
above and beyond the perception of the senses, into 
which it was our privilege to obtain a glimpse by the 
marvellous experiences chronicled above — all this 
did but furnish material for my active imagination, 
and was absorbed, and pondered over, and woven 
into the intangible, unsubstantial fabric of many a 
future song. Meantime, the influences of the hour 
were naturally all-powerful in magnifying the ven- 
eration in which I held my parents. It was in truth 

170 



A FAITH -HEALER 



no ordinary every-day existence which, they led; 
and that which was most remarkable was the perfect 
harmony in aim and action of these two so dis- 
similar natures, and their admirable co-operation in 
furthering the well-being of their fellow-creatures, 
the special gifts of each being employed to the same 
end, my father's theoretically, my mother's in the 
direction of practical utility. Of the cures which 
the latter was enabled to work, I shall tell elsewhere ; 
suffice it to say in this place, that they were effected 
with a swiftness, and attended with circumstances 
so remarkable as to surpass if anything those of 
Szapary himself. In later years, when the extraor- 
dinary cures wrought by Metzger and other mas- 
seurs were spoken of in my mother's presence, it 
did not astonish anyone who knew her that she 
should calmly remark, with a pitying smile — 4 4 That 
is all very well, but it is nothing to what I could do ! 
I had but to stretch out my hand and say — Bise up, 
thou art healed ! ' ' 

The somnambulistic experiments I witnessed were 
perhaps more marvellous than all the rest. It 
would almost seem as if in the case of the som- 
nambulist the law of gravitation were abolished, 
so entirely free from the trammels of material exist- 
ence does the human body appear to be while in this 
state. Certainly my mother often appeared to us 
no longer to tread the earth, she seemed to float 
rather than walk, and any further and more com- 
plete abolition of what we are accustomed to term 
the laws of nature, would assuredly have occasioned 
among us no surprise at all. No amount of famil- 

171 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



iarity, on the other hand, could ever do away with 
the feeling of awe, with which my mother's ecstatic 
trance invariably inspired us. Unconscious of all 
around, she sang and prayed — the words and melody 
alike of her own composition ; it was a deeply mov- 
ing spectacle. 

Brought up in an atmosphere so highly charged 
with the marvellous, it has ever been impossible to 
me to assume a sceptical attitude towards mysteries 
which elude my comprehension. The word super- 
natural seems to me to be an absolute contradiction 
in terms. Who are we that we should dare to set 
limits to the forces of nature, and to decide that this 
or that occurrence is beyond her control? Did we 
but understand such events aright, we must needs 
acknowledge them to be perfectly natural. Egyp- 
tian priests of old, and Indian fakirs of the present 
day may alike laugh us to scorn, that in our igno- 
rance and impotence we presume to question the ex- 
istence of forces whose workings they have fathomed 
and turned to such good account. Recourse to the 
supernatural is but a return to nature. For this 
reason it may well be that outside the domain of 
surgery, wherein such incontestable triumphs have 
been achieved, of the whole of our modern medical 
practice the so-called nature-cures will in the end 
alone survive. They rest indeed on a purely 
rational basis, the treatment being none other than 
the art of transforming pathological phenomena 
into therapeutical processes. 

I refer of course to the treatment I have myself 
seen practised and to the examples quoted here. 

172 



A FAITH -HEALER 

The system made considerable demands on the good- 
will and concurrence of the patient, these being, in 
the opinion of Count Szapary, indispensable condi- 
tions of its success. An entirely different principle 
is acted upon, I am aware, by those who practise 
massage at the present day. With them the patient 
remains entirely passive, and the massage itself is 
alone supposed to work the cure. I will not enter 
into the question of the respective merits of the two 
systems, I would merely point out the benefit that 
accrued to the patient from the independence to 
which he was encouraged by the earlier one. All 
who had sufficient energy to follow the prescribed 
path, were able in course of time to continue the 
treatment alone, whilst such as were found incapable 
of making the necessary effort for recovery, and 
disposed to fall into a morbid state of dependence 
on the doctor, were dismissed as a hindrance to the 
others. Every phase of illness was treated as a 
stepping-stone to progress, every symptom turned 
to account ; the somnambulistic trance, for instance, 
was made use of as a stage in the transition from 
sickness to health, a state of repose deeper and 
more refreshing than ordinary sleep, during which 
by no other means than the rest prescribed by] 
nature, the weakened frame and overstrung nerves 
might recover their equilibrium. Every step in the 
treatment was accompanied by prayer; it bore in- 
deed from first to last a markedly religious char- 
acter. All the members of our little circle felt| 
themselves lifted above the common wants and de- 
sires of humanity by the nobler prospects which the 

173 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



wider horizon opened out before them; we were as 
neophytes whom some rite of initiation sets apart 
for holier purposes. It was difficult to live invari- 
ably on that exalted level, the circumstances might 
not always be propitious, and on myself they seemed 
sometimes to bear too heavily. It was the sight of 
so much suffering, the perpetual intercourse with 
invalids, that preyed on my spirits and against 
which my own youthful health and strength could 
at times scarce react. But at such moments my 
mother's iron discipline stood me in good stead. I 
had been so well drilled, and had my feelings under 
such perfect control, that neither to her nor anyone 
else, and scarce even to myself would I ever have 
acknowledged that life had sometimes become a 
burden to me. I knew that for the sake of others I 
must keep a smiling face, and do my best to cheer 
them, whatever my own sadness. 

Count Szapary was always cheerful, or at any rate 
always wore an appearance of cheerfulness, laugh- 
ing and singing with the joviality of a true Hun- 
garian, and rejoicing in magnificent health and 
strength. This doubtless aided him to give confi- 
dence to his patients, who must have been trying at 
times with their whims and caprices. It has been 
given to few to benefit their fellow-creatures to a 
like extent, or to reap the harvest of benedictions 
that will forever blossom round his name. 



CHAPTER X 



MARY BARNES 

I see her still, in her plain black dress, coming 
towards the castle from the landing-stage of the 
steamer, and crossing the quadrangle with soft, 
noiseless tread, as gentle and calm as the breath of 
the evening breeze, bringing with her an atmosphere 
of comfort and peace of which we became conscious 
even before she had crossed the threshold. 

We were looking out for her with impatience and 
some misgivings, my brother Wilhelm and I, for the 
advent of a new nurse is an event of no small im- 
portance in children's lives, and already, scarce three 
and four years of age as we were respectively, we 
had undergone the trial of parting with the dear 
old one who had made herself so justly beloved, 
and whose place was taken by a younger woman, 
whom we detested with equal vehemence and on 
equally good grounds. So we ensconced ourselves 
firmly in the broad window-sill to have a better view 
of the new-comer, wondering to ourselves which of 
her two predecessors she would resemble. Our 
doubts were dispelled even before Barnes entered 
the house ; the quick, unerring instinct of childhood 
told us that many happy days were in store for us in 
the care of this good, kind soul, who came along 
as noiselessly as a leaf wafted hither by the wind. 
I do not think she was at all beautiful— in point 
of fact rather a plain-featured elderly woman, with 

175 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



at times a decided squint; but our eyes had quickly 
discerned the beauty of the soul under that homely 
exterior, and lovely she ever remained to us. We 
saw in her a sort of guardian angel, shielding us 
from every peril that might beset the path of child- 
hood, watching over our health with untiring zeal, 
and entirely wrapped up in our happiness. For 
herself she seemed to ask nothing, to want nothing, 
to have no wishes or desires beyond those that 
affected the well-being of her little charges. That 
the motherly instinct should be so strong in her, and 
should, so to say, pervade her whole person, was the 
less surprising considering that she had, as she her- 
self told us, from the age of ten played the part of 
the mother they had lost to her own younger 
brothers and sisters. She was the ideal nurse; 
scrupulous in the fulfilment of all her duties, and her 
honest simplicity coupled with such innate delicacy 
of feeling as to lend a certain refinement to her 
whole person. She was at her happiest as she sat, 
needle in hand, watching our games, and from time 
to time laying down her work, the more thoroughly 
to enter into our merriment; we might laugh and 
romp to our heart's content, her calm was unruffled, 
her patience inexhaustible. Our childish intuition 
had not been at fault in foreseeing that under her 
kindly sway our nursery would once more become 
a little paradise, the dearest corner for us in the 
whole house. "We should have asked nothing better 
than to be left there as long as possible; but alas! 
the governess was already on the way to whom I was 
to be handed over, and who was antipathetic to me 

176 



MARY BARNES 



from the very first, her cleverness availing nothing 
to conceal that she was both underbred and ill-tem- 
pered. I fled as often as I could from her harshness 
and bad manners, back to the dear old nursery — 
back to the good angel, Barnes! I was surely 
somewhat young to have been removed at all from 
those gentle influences, but the step had been judged 
a wise one by my parents, in order to turn to account 
as early as possible the magnificent health and 
excellent abilities with which I was blessed. To this 
young, but physically fragile couple — the valetu- 
dinarian father, pale, melancholy, of sedentary and 
studious habits, and the mother, whose own natural 
liveliness was being undermined by the attacks of 
an insidious and baffling malady — to them there may 
well have been something disconcerting and almost 
alarming in the temperament of such a child, the 
quintessence of health, restless as quicksilver and 
blithe as a bird, in whose young limbs the joy of liv- 
ing pulsed wildly and on whose lips snatches of song 
were forever alternating with ringing laughter ! It 
cannot be wondered at if they only saw in my high 
spirits a sure sign of frivolity, and that on every 
occasion on which my indomitable will showed itself, 
I should simply have been condemned as headstrong 
and obstinate. 

I seized, then, every possible opportunity to rush 
off to the nursery, to shake myself free of all fetters 
and restraint — to breathe freely once more ! I kept 
up the habit for some time of going every now and 
then to spend a quiet hour with Barnes, helping her 
with her mending and sewing, for her needle was 
12 177 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



never idle, and it was so soothing to sit and talk 
with her. I have said how she watched over us, 
tending us with such admirable care that my 
brother's health improved from the day she entered 
our house. But all that was nothing compared to 
the superhuman devotion, the heroic self-sacrifice of 
the life which began for her from the moment of 
poor little Otto's birth. She it was who first dis- 
covered what was wrong with the unfortunate child, 
and with tenderness and loving care that are beyond 
all praise and which words are inadequate to de- 
scribe, she gave herself up heart and soul to his 
service, mitigating as far as might be the terrible 
sufferings that made a martyrdom of his short life. 
Day and night she was at her post, indefatigable, 
uncomplaining, holding him in her arms for hours 
at a time to ease his pain and enable him to breathe 
with a little less difficulty, her whole thought how 
to bring some relief to the poor tortured little frame. 
What those tortures were, none knew so well as the 
faithful Barnes, and I have therefore chiefly bor- 
rowed her own simple words, when I have tried to 
tell the story of my poor little brother's life. He 
did not live to complete his twelfth year, but in that 
short space of time he had suffered so unutterably 
and with so little respite, one could not have wished 
the trial to be prolonged. Hardest of all it was to 
his devoted nurse to leave him before the end, but 
even that sacrifice was demanded of her, my mother 
believing it to be for the boy's good and all im- 
portant for the formation of his character that he 
should not be left too long under feminine control. 

178 



MARY BARNES 



Just as she had never complained of fatigue or dis- 
comfort during all the sleepless nights and weary 
days in which she had watched beside him, so now 
this hardest trial brought no murmur to her lips. 
She accepted it with the same pious resignation, 
bravely hiding under a smiling face her own aching 
heart, in order to soften the pangs of separation to 
her beloved foster-child. Otto had always called 
her Nana, and Nana she remained for us, even after 
she had left us altogether to take charge of the 
nursery of the Grand Duchess of Baden, in whose 
service she died. 

But before the end came for Otto, Barnes was sent 
for once more, and stayed with him some days, days 
unspeakably precious to both, until all was over. 
And again she had the courage, the supreme cour- 
age of true affection, to smile as she bade him that 
last farewell ! 

Were it not for my profound conviction, that in 
publishing these reminiscences, I am but extending 
to a larger circle of friends and sympathisers the 
confidence already reposed in some, I should never 
have the courage to throw open the sacred precincts 
of the Past. But the lesson of these lives may be 
useful thus, and bring hope and comfort to souls still 
fainting under their heavy burden. 

Above all do I feel it a duty, when I hear so much 
said of the worthlessness of human nature, to tell of 
the good which I have witnessed and experienced. 
Fate has perhaps in this dealt more kindly with me 
than with most, for I have met far more good than 
evil, and have seldom been disappointed and de- 
ceived where I have bestowed affection and trust. 

179 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



Can one even believe in absolute malevolence! 
May not those who appear animated by ill-will 
sometimes be simply mistaken? Surely the noble- 
minded Lamartine was right, when he spoke of 
"les pauvres mechants!" With some of them it is 
perhaps sheer clumsiness ; they think to show their 
affection, but its object is crushed to death by it, as 
surely as the victim of a bear's uncouth embrace! 

How should those who are born with a bear's 
ungainly paws, bear the branch of palm or scatter 
lilies throughout the world! There are a few, like 
our good Barnes, whose hands were made to carry 
lilies. Wherever she turned, balsam sprang forth. 
Her own life was joyless, but for the comfort it 
brought to others, and therein she found abiding 
happiness. 

Barnes lies buried in the church at Meinau, and a 
tablet with a most touching and beautiful inscription 
is put up to her memory. But what is that beside 
the tablet on which her memory is engraved within 
my heart! — I still see her with her eyes riveted on 
Otto's face, following every change in it with an 
expression of the deepest concern, and the words, 
' ' that poor child ! ' ' ever and anon breaking involun- 
tarily from her lips. Of herself, her own sufferings, 
her own fatigue, never a word; it was always of 
him she spoke, of his marvellous patience, his unex- 
ampled fortitude. Surely she must be rewarded 
now, in seeing him no longer writhing with pain, but 
radiant in health and youthful beauty, having 
shuffled off this mortal coil, to live on triumphant 
with the life of the spirit. 

180 



CHAPTER XI 



THE FAMILY VALETTE 

It was on my governess, Fraulein Josse, that 
devolved the pleasing task of bringing a little inno- 
cent amusement into our lives. She lent herself the 
more willingly to this, I fancy, that she was often 
in her inmost soul distressed to see us thus early 
initiated into so much sorrow and suffering, such 
painful daily experiences naturally robbing us of 
the healthy unthinking lightheartedness, befitting 
our age. Nor was she in the least a partisan of 
the uncompromisingly matter-of-fact system of edu- 
cation on which we were brought up. She actually 
read some Mahrchen aloud to us, and we absolutely 
revelled in the enchantments of that delicious fairy- 
world, whose gates were thus thrown open to us. 
This was the beginning of a quite new sort of game, 
in which even poor little Otto could take part, these 
delightful stories being acted over and over again 
by us, and we grew quite inventive in devising char- 
acters for him, which he could impersonate sitting 
in his chair, and thus have the illusion of playing 
his part. It was kind Fraulein Josse too, who gave 
me the ' ' Wide, Wide World/ ' the only book in the 
least resembling a novel which I was allowed to 
read while in my teens. I was so fond of it, that I 
used to hide it under a chair, whence I could fetch 
it out and devour a few pages, in the hours when 
I ought, perhaps, to have been committing lines of 

181 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



Horace or Ovid to memory, or writing an essay on 
some period of Church history. 

The "Wide, Wide World " thns became, with 
"Augustin," the story I have already mentioned, 
the favourite reading of my childhood, and those 
two simple books were my inseparable companions 
all through my schooldays. My own pleasure in 
them had been so great, I would have liked to share 
it with others, and one of the very first things I did 
on arriving in Eoumania, was to have "Augustin" 
translated into the language of my new country. 
Unfortunately, the translator's knowledge of Eou- 
manian was insufficient, a circumstance of which I 
was then unable to judge, so my plan did not suc- 
ceed. 

During my first stay in Paris, whither Fraulein 
Josse had accompanied us, in 1853-54, I made the 
acquaintance of her best friends there, a family 
called Valette. My governess and Madame Valette 
had known one another as young girls, the latter 
being the daughter of the Pasteur Affiat, pastor of 
the French Protestant community in Hanau, so that 
both were delighted at thus meeting again. And 
now, Madame Valette 's husband being pastor of the 
little Protestant chapel in the Marais, it became our 
delight, Wilhelm's and mine, to wander over there 
with our governess, to spend our weekly half -holiday 
with the Valette children. Every Thursday then, 
we set out on foot from our house in the Champs 
Elysees, for the picturesque little dwelling in the 
Eue Pavee, that quaint old-fashioned street, whose 
very name conjures up such pleasant memories for 

182 



THE FAMILY VALETTE 



me after all these years. What happy hours we 
passed, playing in the beautiful garden, which our 
friends shared in common with several other fami- 
lies, whom we also learned to know. It was such 
a delicious new sensation to us, of freedom from 
all restraint and supervision, our elders always re- 
maining together talking, leaving us children to race 
unmolested through house and garden, exercising 
our active young limbs and our sound young lungs, 
and clearing away the cobwebs from our tired 
brains. Staircase, passages, basement, how well I 
remember it all, and the pastor himself, whom we 
thought at first rather stiff, but who occasionally 
unbent to joke with us. And his dear good wife, 
who let us do just whatever came into our heads, 
never interfering with our wildest play, as we tore 
through the rooms, springing down the stairs two or 
three steps at a time, and hiding in dark corners, 
whence we could spring out and frighten one an- 
other. On cold dull days we stayed indoors, acting 
charades, or sitting contentedly round the big din- 
ing-room table covered with oil-cloth, telling stories 
in turn, laughing and chattering, so perfectly happy 
and at our ease in these modest surroundings, and 
learning more French in half-an-hour than in a 
whole week's lessons. 

The eldest daughter, Marie, was almost grown up, 
but I was especially fond of her, she was the leader 
in all our games, and told us most delightful stories. 
Her next sister, Minna, was more reserved, and did 
not care to join in our play, but then came two, just 
of our own age, Cecile and Charlotte. The last- 

183 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



named, who died quite young, was the sweetest little 
creature, and I still see her flying to meet us, with 
her long fair curls streaming behind her, and fling- 
ing her arms round us both in her joy to welcome us. 
The only son, a gentle, dreamy lad, of a serious turn 
of mind, afterwards became a pastor. Marie after- 
wards married the son of the celebrated preacher, 
Adolphe Monod, whose sermons were so much talked 
of, that it was a great disappointment to me not to 
be taken to hear him, but my mother would not 
consent to our going to church before we had 
attained our twelfth year. 

The French Protestants gave me the impression 
at the time of being rather stiff and formal people, 
austere and almost morose in their religious views, 
though I really hardly know what it was made me 
think so, as we never heard them discuss religious 
matters at all. We simply came there to play, and 
enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, and if the gloomy 
appearance of the parents was sometimes in striking 
contrast to the high spirits of our little companions, 
that may of course have been due to quite other 
causes than a depressing creed, and I have often 
thought since that with the large family and very 
small means, there were probably material cares 
whose existence we did not even suspect. Of cares 
of that nature we knew nothing; we had others, in 
our own home life, of which of course we never spoke 
to our little friends, and they very likely used equal 
discretion concerning their family troubles towards 
us. Children who have never been encouraged to 
chatter, nor had the evil example of gossip before 

184 



THE FAMILY VALETTE 



their eyes, are naturally discreet, and very great 
reserve was always impressed on us by our parents. 

The good custom of the weekly half -holiday, with 
which we became acquainted in Paris, was found to 
be so beneficial, sending us back refreshed and in- 
vigorated to our lessons next day, that, once intro- 
duced, it was not given up on our return to Neuwied, 
but became firmly established with us. The after- 
noon then was, however, no longer entirely devoted 
to play, but a part of it employed for those delight- 
ful lessons in book-binding — only another form of 
recreation, and perhaps, of more lasting enjoyment 
than the running wild, good as that was at the time. 

Every Saturday I attended a class in the rue des 
Saints Peres, le cours de I'Abbe Gaultier, it was 
called, and to this also I walked, accompanied by 
Fraulein Josse. The professor, the Abbe Gaultier, 
sat at a green table, round which all the young 
girls were ranged, behind each one her mother or 
governess sitting, and then we were questioned on 
the lessons done during the week and our written 
work was examined, and fresh subjects given to pre- 
pare for the following week. It was rather an 
ordeal for me, with my invincible shyness, and accus- 
tomed as I had always been to learning alone, to 
have to speak out before all these strangers, and in 
a language that after all was not my mother-tongue. 
And some of the other little girls were so bright and 
clever, they always had something to say and turned 
their answers so prettily! the poor little German 
envied them their readiness and brilliancy, and felt 
quite dull and awkward in their midst. Only once 

185 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



did I bear off the honours, but that was not in the 
least by my cleverness or presence of mind, but 
simply by sheer honest stupidity. 

We had just been told in the grammar lesson to 
form a sentence in the imperfect tense, to show that 
we understood the right use of the imperfect. Here 
I was on my own ground, for I at once made a sen- 
tence bringing in two imperfects, and waited in 
burning impatience for it to be my turn to reply, 
feeling this time sure of my jeton. These 
"counters" or good-marks were given for every cor- 
rect answer, and twenty of them made up what was 
called a ^residence, twenty of which again entitled to a 
brevet, or certificate with a seal attached, the highest 
honour of all. I was in two classes, for certain sub- 
jects with little girls of my own age, but had been 
put into a higher one for history, in order that I 
might learn French history very thoroughly, and 
this it was that stood in my way, for history was my 
aversion and dates a stumbling-block to me — I never 
could remember a single one! — My failures in this 
field I however made up for in the grammar lesson, 
which was already my passion, and my lips were 
quivering with impatience to bring out my example 
of the imperfect tense. At last the Abbe Gaultier 
looked in my direction. "Quand j 'etais petite, je ne 
reflechissais pas!" The good priest came close up 
to me: — "Et maintenant ? ' 9 I turned crimson, but 
blurted out quite honestly: "Maintenant je ne 
reflechis pas non plus!" — The whole room burst 
out laughing, but the professor quietly placed one of 
the much-coveted red counters before me with the 

186 



THE FAMILY VALETTE 



words: "Tenez, mon enfant; viola dix jetons, pour 
votre jolie phrase et pour voire naive reponse!" 
And thanks to this I really did get the brevet at last, 
of which I had again nearly been deprived by the 
unlucky history-lesson. 

My painful timidity made the classes somewhat of 
a trial to me ; I felt ill beforehand at the thought of 
having to answer questions in public as it were, I 
hated to have to play the piano before people, and as 
for an examination, I should never have been able 
to pass even a very easy one ! I have been the same 
my whole life long, and I laughed heartily one day 
at the perspicacity of one of our Ministers, who 
after accompanying me on a visit to some school, 
told me with a smile, when the inspection, speech- 
making, and prize-giving were all happily over, that 
he believed there had been only one person who felt 
intimidated in the whole assembly, and that was 
myself ! It was quite true ; I was afraid to put any 
questions to the children lest they should answer 
wrong, and was much too anxious on their behalf, to 
pay any attention to what they did say. On such occa- 
sions I always remember my own troubles with those 
wretched chronological tables, with which my poor 
memory was to be burdened ! And then the horrors 
of arithmetic! The cells, whose function it should 
be to deal with numbers and calculations, must be 
altogether lacking in my brain! Perhaps if such 
dreary subjects could have been taught me in verse, 
I might have learnt something, for it is hard for me 
to forget any little tag of verse I have ever heard, 

187 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



and I remember every one of those that formed 
a summary of the chapters in our first simple little 
books of history. If only they had thought of teach- 
ing me dates in rhyme, I should not be so shockingly 
ignorant as I have remained to this day! 

It was I suppose, because of my intense love of 
poetry, and that I felt so perfectly in my native ele- 
ment there, that my shyness always left me directly 
I had to read aloud or recite. I felt sure of myself 
then, and threw myself with passion into the verses 
I declaimed. We learned long poems by heart, 
"The Prisoner of Chillon," Schiller's "Lay of the 
Bell, ' ' whatever we liked, and in whatever language 
we preferred, and recited them every Sunday to our 
parents, to our own great delight. My mother de- 
claimed so admirably herself, that she was by no 
means easy to please, she insisted on good elocution, 
and showed us how by modulation of the voice to 
give the right expression to the words. We were 
all apt pupils, I fancy ; what delicious drollery poor 
little Otto put into Burger's poem, "Emperor and 
Abbot," when he was only five years old! 

For all my shyness I had, before we left Paris, 
grown quite reconciled to the lessons in a big class, 
feeling how much more easily one learns together 
with companions of one's own age, even if the in- 
centive of rivalry, perhaps too active with some of 
these, played a very small part in my own case. 
This little taste of school-life made my lonely les- 
sons seem so dull to me afterwards, that I was 
always longing to have a peep at a real school, not 

188 



THE FAMILY VALETTE 



this time a fashionable cours, like that I had 
attended in Paris, but a simple village school, full of 
little peasant children. So one morning I actually 
managed to steal out of the house unseen, and run- 
ning away as hard as I could, I joined the children 
from the home-farm on their way to school. Oh! 
how I enjoyed myself! I sat on the bench between 
the farmer's little boy and girl, and joined in the 
singing with the whole strength of my lungs, though 
the small girl kept trying to put her hand before my 
mouth, for she thought it highly improper that a 
princess should be singing with peasant children! 
It was a glorious day; but the most glorious day 
must come to an end, and this one ended sadly for 
me, for when I was missed, my parents were fright- 
ened to death, and the hue and cry was raised, and 
servants and game-keepers sent out in all direc- 
tions, till at last I was found, seated in triumph in 
the midst of the village school, and putting my whole 
heart and soul into the singing! I was shut up in 
my room for the rest of the day, as a punishment for 
the alarm I had given, and I was in such disgrace 
for some time afterwards, that I was terribly 
ashamed of my escapade, and hardly liked to think 
of it any more, much less to plan another ; but now, 
when I look back, it is a satisfaction to me that for 
once in my childhood I did break through my fetters 
and emancipate myself so thoroughly ! 

That was the year after our return from Paris. 
The next year, Marie Valette came on a visit to us, 
and we spent many pleasant hours together, reading 

189 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



and working. I was very busy at needlework just 
then, principally plain sewing, for our hospital, and 
very proud I was at rny contribution, all of useful 
things I had made myself, underclothing for the 
poor people, which I was able to take them. While 
Marie and I sat at work, Fraulein Jose read aloud 
to us, and that somewhat recalled the pleasant days 
in Paris, when we met at her parents' house, and 
all sat round the big table, while one of the party 
told or read a story to the rest. And these simple 
pleasures of my youth are still those I prefer — beau- 
tiful needlework with agreeable conversation, or 
a good book read aloud, in a sympathetic circle. I 
am still very fond of reading aloud myself, and can 
do that to a very large audience. It is perhaps the 
only time when I quite forget my shyness ! 

But I did forget it as a child too, at times, and 
above all in the society of good, kind, simple people 
like the Valettes, who just left us to ourselves, to 
amuse ourselves in our own way. For that reason, 
it would have been ungrateful indeed, if I had not 
given a corner among my Penates to Marie and her 
family. The whole remembrance is a pleasant one, 
beginning with the long walk through the streets of 
Paris, which we learned to know so well, we could 
almost have found our way through them blindfold. 
And the merry party round the dinner-table, for we 
dined there, and only returned home quite late in the 
evening. Our garden was too small for the other 
children to come to play in it with us, and then it 
would have disturbed the invalids, who had, of 

190 



THE FAMILY VALETTE 



course, to be considered first. Both for the sake of 
the sick people, and of ray father's work, it was no 
place for noisy games and joyous laughter; we had 
to creep about like little mice, and it was indeed a 
relief to us to get away, to escape into a fresher 
atmosphere, and shake off all the sadness that 
oppressed our young souls. To have been aided to 
this was an inestimable boon, and I still think with 
affection and gratitude of those, to whom we owed 
those happy hours. 



CHAPTER XII 



KARL SOHN, THE PORTRAIT-PAINTER 

If ever a face on this earth may be said to have 
been irradiated and illumined by the light of genu- 
ine kindliness — of the pure goodness of heart that 
transcends all other human qualities — it was the 
countenance of our beloved friend, Karl Sohn, the 
Diisseldorf artist. His features were not regular, 
but were refined and spiritualised by the beauty of 
the soul that shone through, the gentleness of his 
physiognomy being only enhanced by the command- 
ing character of the lofty, well-chiselled brow, 
shaded as this was by soft masses of thick fair hair. 
He was tall of stature, well proportioned and of dig- 
nified bearing, his step light and easy, in spite of 
his great height, and with something almost wil- 
lowy in his gait ; every movement was impregnated 
with grace and harmony. There was a peculiar 
charm in his conversation, and this may probably 
have been in great measure due to the soft deep 
tones of his finely modulated voice, as clear and 
caressing as the sound of a silver bell, wrapt in 
velvet. But much of the fascination doubtless lay 
in the graceful and appropriate gestures with which 
he accompanied his words, and which lent singular 
force to his graphic descriptions. Thus, in expatiat- 
ing on the beauties of some landscape, words and 
action seemed to go together to call it up before our 
eyes, one broad sweep of his well-shaped hand mak- 

192 



KARL SOHN, THE PORTRAIT- PAINTER 



ing the undulating line of the distant mountain- 
range visible to everyone. 

What a pleasure it was to listen to that mellow 
voice, and to the low laugh with which he sometimes 
interrupted his own stories. Sohn was one of those 
exceptional, happily constituted beings, themselves 
so perfectly harmonious, that their presence seems 
to diffuse an atmosphere of peace and contentment, 
into which as each one enters he feels on better terms 
with himself and others. The world was full of 
beauty for him, as it is for few of us, and the joy 
he felt in every aspect of the beautiful — in Nature, 
in children, in the human form divine, and in pleas- 
ant companionship — was, like the whole nature of 
the man, at once ingenuous and profound. He had 
laid out for himself a little garden round his house 
in Diisseldorf , with so much skill, that the small 
space really looked like a miniature park. The 
effect was charming; but the proprietor seemed 
almost to find it necessary to apologise for such a 
display of luxury, saying deprecatingly, — "The 
beautiful is a necessary condition of existence to us 
poor artists ! So indispensable is it to us, that we 
would willingly make every other sacrifice, just 
to be able to surround ourselves with things of 
beauty ! ' ' 

It was through his pupil, my great-uncle Charles, 
that we first became acquainted with Sohn. My 
uncle, who had been a musical dilettante for the first 
fifty years of his life, attaining I believe a certain 
proficiency on the French horn, had recently turned 
his attention to painting, in which art he was still 
13 193 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



a mere tyro at the time of my parents' marriage. 
At first he was always sending for Sohn, to ask his 
criticism, and advice, and by sheer hard work and 
perseverance he succeeded in the end in painting 
very good portraits. There was one of my mother, 
for which she declared she sat to him no less than 
seventy-five times. To beguile the tedium of those 
long sittings, she learned by heart the parts she 
was going to play in private theatricals, repeating 
the lines aloud without fear of disturbing the artist, 
who was quite absorbed in his work, and very hard 
of hearing into the bargain. But in the one play 
occurred a phrase so singularly appropriate, that 
she could not resist raising her voice for it to reach 
the ears of the deaf old man, who peeped out aston- 
ished from behind his easel and shook his finger 
at her, as she exclaimed: — ' 4 Dear Uncle! must I 
then really be bored to death !" And her subse- 
quent assurance that this was only in her part only 
half mollified him. In spite of the long sittings, 
the portrait was not a success; it however brought 
Sohn to our house, and two admirable pictures of 
my mother by him represent her in all her youthful 
bloom at that period. The one is in a red velvet 
dress, her face framed in a mass of fair curls; the 
other in her riding-habit, just as he had seen her 
jump down from her horse, flushed with the exercise 
of a long ride. 

These were the first two pictures Sohn painted 
in our family, but he was henceforth every year a 
welcome visitor, often making a stay of many weeks 
among us, and painting more than one portrait of 

194 



KARL SOHN, THE PORTRAIT -PAINTER 



each member of the family. He was inspired to his 
finest work, one of his many portraits of my mother 
— by seeing her in the ecstatic trance. So deeply 
had this impressed him, that it was almost under 
similar conditions that he worked, altogether re- 
moved from this earthly plane, blind and deaf to all 
that went on aronnd him, and entirely absorbed in 
the contemplation of the radiant, transfigured coun- 
tenance of his model, and in the feverish effort to 
transfer to his canvas some faint reflection of the 
wondrous radiance diffused over her whole person. 
In his despair of obtaining this effect from the ordi- 
nary resources of his palette, he was forever seeking 
some new means, devising some new combination of 
colour, he would fain have dipped his brush in pure 
light, have steeped the whole picture in unclouded 
sunshine! Something of this has been felt by all 
those who have striven, with like fidelity and with 
the same gross materials, to copy the dazzling hues 
even of some simple flower ; has one but tried, with 
such poor pigments, with our muddy bismuths and 
dingy ochres, to reproduce the lily's transparent 
whiteness or the rich gold of the humble buttercup, 
we can the better appreciate the vanity of all at- 
tempts at imitating on so feeble and limited a 
scale, the radiant tints and subtle, endless grada- 
tions of Nature's colour-box, employed by the Di- 
vine Artist! We must needs perforce, for lack of 
the clear strong light, throw up our dim half-lights 
and faded colours by deeper shadows. But Sohn 
for this once would none of such artifice. Disdain- 
ing every expedient of contrast, he laid on the 

195 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



colours simply and boldly, after the manner of the 
Early Masters, painting with the pions enthusiasm, 
the sacred fire that was theirs, and borrowing some- 
thing of their technical methods to impart the ex- 
pression of holy rapture to the face, a diaphanous 
delicacy to the folded hands, to give to the kneeling 
figure the semblance of a martyr at the stake, a saint 
to whose beatific vision the gates of Heaven are flung 
open wide ! 

Sohn made a picture of my brother Wilhelm and 
myself, at four and five years of age, hand in hand ; 
such a speaking likeness, that as we stood beside it 
holding a big wreath of flowers, when it was given to 
my father on his birthday, he kept looking from 
the painting to us, and then back again to the pic- 
ture — quite puzzled for a moment, he assured us, 
as to which were the real children and which their 
portrait ! Such restless beings as small children can 
never be very easy to paint; but Sohn succeeded 
wonderfully in catching the expression on each little 
face, — my brother's serious and dreamy, with an 
almost stolid determination to keep quiet, and mine, 
all life and movement, with sparkling eyes and a 
dancing smile, that betokened anything but the 
requisite immobility of pose. It was an amusing 
contrast; Wilhelm stood firm as a rock, whilst all 
my efforts to keep still as I was bidden only made 
me tremble from head to foot with impatience, and 
at one sitting resulted in my fainting away after I 
had actually accomplished the feat of keeping in the 
same position for five consecutive minutes! I re- 
member how alarmed the artist was, when I sud- 

196 



KARL SOHN, THE PORTRAIT -PAINTER 



denly fell from my chair to the floor, in a dead 
faint, and how concerned he was abont me, reproach- 
ing himself with the nnnatnral constraint imposed 
on my mercnrial nature by the sittings. Bnt what 
surprised him most of all, was to witness the means 
employed to bring me ronnd; as I recovered con- 
sciousness, a sip of cold water, a little piece of black 
bread were given me by my mother to revive me, 
and Sohn, who was not then so well acquainted 
with the Spartan simplicity of our bringing up, felt 
amazed, as he afterwards told us, at the homeliness 
of the measures. Little princesses, he thought, 
were always fed on dainties, and would not con- 
descend to eat anything less appetising than cake ! 

The torture those sittings were to me, I hope he 
never knew. He was so good and kind, and did so 
much to make them bearable, whiling away the time 
by talking to us and telling us amusing stories, or 
getting someone else to read an entertaining book 
aloud to us while he painted. But it was all no 
good. Outside I could see the sun shining, and hear 
the birds singing and the wind whistling through the 
trees, and I — who longed to be out there in the sun- 
shine, singing with the birds, and running races with 
the wind, — I must be cooped up within four walls, in 
a room that instead of the fragrance of the flowers, 
smelt of nasty oil-colours ! It was not to be borne. 
As well try to imprison the wild west wind, or stop 
the dancing mountain-stream in its course! I was 
just as wild and free, and my mother sometimes 
asked if any power on earth could be found to tame 
me. Had she but known! All too soon a spell 

197 



4 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



would be worked, transforming the wayward child 
into a quiet gentle maiden, grave-eyed and serious. 
It was by the discipline of sorrow that the change 
should be wrought — in the sick-room that the lesson 
must be learnt; there I could sit for hours, silent and 
motionless, dreading lest a movement, a whisper 
should disturb the dear sufferer beside whose pillow 
I watched. 

But already then, in my wildest, most reckless 
mood, and however my spirit might chafe at the 
enforced immobility of the lengthy sittings, I felt the 
soothing influence of the artist's gentle voice, and 
the deep full tones could lull my feverish impatience. 
Nor did the impression wear off as time went on; 
echoes of that sympathetic voice live in my memory, 
calling up many a bygone scene — long talks as we 
rambled through the forest, dreams and aspirations, 
hopes and fears, all the joys and sorrows of those 
vanished days, — Sohn's memory is inseparably asso- 
ciated with all of these. The portraits he painted 
extend over a long series of years. One of Otto 
was done just before the poor boy's death — my 
father 's also, at a time when we knew that he had not 
long to live among us — my mother he depicted at all 
times and seasons, and under all possible circum- 
stances, from ecstasy to the deepest mourning. He 
used to say, that he hoped to live long enough to 
make one more portrait of her with snow-white hair. 
But this wish remained unfulfilled, for my mother's 
hair had not yet turned grey, when he was called 
away from us. 

One autumn Sohn came to us accompanied by his 

198 



KARL SOHN, THE PORTRAIT- PAINTER 



friend, the great artist, Lessing. The latter, a very 
handsome man, like so many of the followers of Art, 
was extremely taciturn. He was a good sportsman, 
shooting his deer almost daily. Much as I dislike 
all sport, my admiration of the artist induced me 
to bring him the proverbial good luck, by meeting 
him as if by chance when he set out in the early 
morn with his gun. As I passed with a smiling 
though silent greeting, I thought to myself that had 
he but known my horror of the slaughter of innocent 
dumb creatures, the great painter would have been 
still more flattered by this attention on the part of 
the daughter of the house. This was after Otto's 
death, and Lessing made a sketch of the grave for 
my mother, with the wonderful precision in render- 
ing every detail that characterised him. Every 
branch of the trees overshadowing the tomb was 
portrayed with lifelike fidelity; Lessing's scrupulous 
exactitude refusing to sanction the slightest devia- 
tion from the original. Every bough, every twig 
must be in its place ; even in a landscape his veracity 
would not tolerate any suppression or addition. 
His realism, his close copying of Nature, was 
coupled with a fear of accepting any other teacher ; 
and he had always been afraid to visit Italy, lest he 
should sacrifice something of his own originality 
to the involuntary imitation of the Old Masters. 

When I grew up, Sohn wished to make a portrait 
of me, as he often saw me, sitting in the shadow of 
a tree, a straw hat on my head, in my simple morning 
attire. But it was unfortunately quite another pic- 
ture that was wanted — in evening dress, in the draw- 

199 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

ing-room — just something that I hated, and that 
seemed to me so little like myself. Sohn, who had 
known me from a child, understood this, and his 
idea was the true one. I shall always regret that 
picture that never was painted, it would have shown 
me exactly as I was, at that period of my life. I 
was the child of the forest, the forest-song, and 
have never wished to be aught else. The untamed 
and untamable in my nature, from which some good 
folk shrank in alarm, was just what pleased our kind 
artist-friend. Others might find my high spirits 
fatiguing, they were never so to him. My sponta- 
neity, my frankness, refreshed him, and his heart 
melted towards this poor little child of Nature, who 
was to be forced against her will to become conven- 
tional — and even, without her knowing it, was being 
already educated to fit her for a throne ! Anything 
rather than that, I should have said — for choice, a 
cottage, a little house hidden away in a wood — for 
I was not ambitious, at least my ambition took quite 
another direction. What could all worldly pomp 
mean to me, who had revelled in the forest-splen- 
dours, in the glories of Nature! The beeches of 
our lofty avenues would dwarf the finest columns 
ever reared to support a roof, and how poor and 
insignificant the hubbub of the crowd must sound, 
to ears accustomed to the mighty music of the storm- 
wind, making the tall trees bend and quiver in its 
path ! In all this Sohn was of my way of thinking, 
and he had quick perceptions of the quieter beauties 
of Nature too, and never missed pointing out to me 
a single blossom sprouting, or an effect of sunlight 

200 



KARL SOHN, THE PORTRAIT -PAINTER 



through the intertwining branches. And he led me 
on to talk and pour out my confidences to him, and 
often broke into a hearty laugh at some unexpected 
sally. I was well willing, I told him, to devote my- 
self to the service of my fellow-creatures, but not 
from a throne; I would live in their midst, to tend 
and comfort them. And the thought of marriage 
was hateful to me, for a husband, it seemed to me, 
must be a master, a sort of tyrant, but children I 
loved, and wished that I might have a dozen ! 

How heartily Sohn would laugh at all this, and 
then grow serious again, and crown my hair with 
glow-worms, as we strolled home through the twi- 
light. I sang like the birds in those days, in the 
truest sense of the word, for every verse I made I 
sang to myself, in the joy of my heart. My life 
was full of poetry indeed — of poetry fostered by the 
surroundings. I have always thought that the hap- 
piest lot on earth is that of the mediatised princes. 
They are like little kings, but without the cares of 
government, enjoying the same liberty as people in 
private life, yet with a patriarchal interest in the 
weal and woe of all their people. Such happy mor- 
tals are generally beloved from their birth, their 
fortune suffices for their needs without awakening 
envy in others, and they have opportunities for in- 
dulging intellectual and artistic tastes, such as few 
others possess. Their country seat is generally 
some old castle, to which historic memories attach, 
probably with a fine library or picture gallery, and 
archeological treasures perhaps beneath the soil. 
As patrons of Art, as hosts to a company of well- 

201 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



chosen guests, as friends of scholars and men of let- 
ters, as descendants of forefathers renowned for 
talents and virtues, they are privileged beyond all 
others. And friends like Sohn must be counted 
among their best treasures ! 

A portrait-painter, worthy of the name, must gen- 
erally be a good psychologist, for he must study his 
models well, and learn their character through the 
physiognomy. 

I shall never forget a day Sohn spent with us at 
Altwied, the lovely old ruined castle, which was the 
cradle of our family. It stands shut in by high 
hills on a little peninsula formed by the meander- 
ings of the Wiedbach, the mountain stream. Many 
a dream have I dreamt within those crumbling walls, 
of which much more was standing then, but on the 
day in question we came, I know not how, to speak 
of the opera, ' ' la Dame Blanche, ' ' and as we all lay 
stretched on the grass, Sohn related the story. So 
poetically, so touchingly did he tell of the young 
man's return to the castle of his ancestors, and of 
the long-forgotten song that stirs in his memory as 
he crosses the threshold — I was carried away by it, 
and the actual performance of the opera, which I 
witnessed some years later, fell very flat in compari- 
son. The glare of the foot-lights, the painted scen- 
ery, the stiffness of the acting, destroyed the beauty 
of the story as first revealed to me through the 
medium of an artist's soul, and on the picturesque 
site to which it seemed naturally to belong. 



CHAPTER XIII 



WEIZCHEN 

In former days nurses and waiting-women in the 
princely families were themselves gentlewomen. It 
was rightly deemed all-essential for children, only 
to come in contact with people of good breeding, 
that they might never incur the danger of acquiring 
bad manners. It was thus that the sister of Gen- 
eral Weiz, a young and accomplished woman, 
became my mother's nurse soon after my grand- 
mother's death, and stayed on in charge of the 
younger children for many years after my grand- 
father's second marriage. Later on, when these 
also were growing up, Fraulein Weiz accompanied 
my mother to Neuwied, where she remained as 
housekeeper for many years, and where we all grew 
much attached to her. 

Weizchen, as she was always affectionately called 
in both families, was young and very pretty when 
she entered the ducal household, blest moreover with 
a very fine voice, which my grandmother had had 
carefully cultivated, but which its possessor had 
never felt the slightest wish to display on the stage 
or in the concert-room, contenting herself with the 
pleasure her talent was able to bestow in a smaller 
circle. She soon made herself beloved in her post 
in Biebric, but just at first my mother was simply 
inconsolable at the parting with her dear old bonne, 
Mile. Clausel, by whom she had been petted and 

203 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



made much of since her birth, and from whom she 
had just been separated. Weizchen's beautiful voice 
had therefore for the moment no charm for the 
little girl, although it excited such general admira- 
tion, as would also at the present day the singer's 
magnificent red hair, that set off the dazzling white- 
ness of her skin, but which was then looked upon 
with such disfavour, that she was quite glad to hide 
it under a light sprinkling of powder, according to 
prevailing etiquette, whenever she appeared in low 
dress, with the children, in the drawing-room. 

As far back as my recollections go, Weizchen was 
always an inmate of my paternal home, having very 
soon followed my mother there after the latter 's 
marriage. From the very first my mother was 
accompanied by Louise von Preen, as lady-in-wait- 
ing, and very amusing tales were told afterwards' 
of the home-sickness of the two young things — 
barely eighteen years of age either of them — in their 
new surroundings. When my mother in a moment 
of loneliness rushed to Louise's room for comfort, 
she found the poor girl seated among her boxes, 
which she had not yet had the heart to have un- 
packed, crying her eyes out. They sobbed together, 
sighing as they gazed at the distant hills, beyond 
which lay their old home. And yet that home was 
not in reality so very far away, and at the present 
day could easily be reached in a couple of hours, 
though to their romantic feelings they seemed to be 
pining for it in distant exile ! Very soon, however, 
the young bride was cheered by a visit from her 
brothers, and after that gay days began for Neu~ 

204 



WEIZCHEN 



wied, the castle often resounding with the happy- 
voices and ringing laughter of the merry yonng 
people assembled within its walls. 

But it was from Weizchen that we loved to hear 
anecdotes of my mother's childhood. When she was 
only three years old her life was saddened by the 
loss of the little brother, just a year older than 
herself, who had been her constant companion. 
During his illness it was the poor little boy's one 
delight to make his sister dance to the accompani- 
ment of a toy harmonica he played, propped up 
among the pillows in his bed, and Weizchen said it 
was the prettiest sight to see the little girl, whose 
movements had already all the lightness and natural 
grace which afterwards earned for her the sobriquet 
of the Ehineland Fairy at the court of Berlin, 
dancing away indefatigably for the pleasure of the 
poor sick child, whose eyes wore a most pathetic 
expression as they watched her. Sad and lonely 
the little girl was, when the brother had gone. The 
lives of little princes were indeed lonely enough at 
the best of times in those days, for once out of the 
nursery they saw but little of one another, not even 
having their meals in common, but each child 
brought up quite apart from the rest with a special 
tutor or governess, with whom the repasts were 
taken, tete-a-tete, and to whose tender mercies the 
pupil was somewhat ruthlessly abandoned. In my 
own early childhood we still experienced the incon- 
veniences of this system of education, but the transi- 
tion to more rational and humane treatment of the 
young was already taking place, and children even 

205 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

of the highest rank now-a-days lead happy natural 
lives, associating with others of their age and con- 
stantly seeing their parents, of whom they no longer 
stand in dread. Quite early we came to table with 
our parents, but that was very uncommon, and in 
an older generation still would have been thought 
impossible. Of course in very many cases the in- 
struction children received suffered from the lack 
of supervision, and some of these young people 
grew up deplorably ignorant, notwithstanding very 
fair natural abilities. My highly gifted uncle Mau- 
rice, for instance — artist, musician, and adept at 
surgery — capable it seemed of learning anything to 
which he turned his attention, was yet never able to 
pen the shortest note without making some mistake 
in spelling. But he painted and composed, as a 
mere dilettante it is true, but with very decided 
talent, and with the same grace and brilliancy that 
he brought into everything else, whether losing his 
money to his male friends at cards, or creating 
havoc among female hearts at the Viennese Court, 
whither he had been sent at the age of seventeen, 
and where he soon showed himself proficient in the 
various accomplishments supposed to be befitting a 
young man of his rank, very handsome and well- 
endowed with worldly goods. He was my mother's 
idol, and made the little sister his confidant — even 
of his love affairs — at a very early age! Very 
early indeed he had begun practising his seductive 
arts on the other sex, if it be true that at the age 
of ten, seeing one of his mother's young maids-of- 
honour in tears, he sidled up to her in his mostcaress- 

206 



WEIZCHEN 



ing, most coaxing way, looking up in her face with 
all the melting tenderness of which his big bine eyes 
were capable, and murmuring persuasively: — "Do 
not cry, Louise; you know I shall always be your 
friend ! ' ' 

But it was a little later, when the gay handsome 
youth had really begun to turn female heads, that 
his confidences to the younger sister must often have 
assumed a very amusing character. Fraulein La- 
vater once found her little pupil dissolved in tears, 
and it was only after reiterated promises of secrecy 
on the part of the governess, that the child at last 
sobbed out: — "Maurice is in love — in love! And 
she whom he loves can never be his, for she is a 
married woman ! ' ' That Fraulein Lavater had some 
difficulty in restraining her laughter, may be easily 
imagined ; but she succeeded, and had moreover the 
good sense and good feeling to respect her promise 
and keep the story of this comic episode to herself, 
until a time when its being made known could no 
longer be prejudicial to anyone. She was rewarded 
for her discretion by being also made the recipient 
of some of the young man's confidences — glimpses 
of the innumerable adventures of which he was the 
hero in the gay Austrian capital. 

The idolising affection my mother bestowed on her 
elder brother, was felt for her in turn by her younger 
brothers and sisters. She was never tired of play- 
ing with them and of telling them the wonderful 
stories which she made up for their amusement. 
The announcement of their step-sister's engagement 
and approaching marriage was received with char- 

207 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



acteristic comments by these little ones. The nine- 
year-old Helene wept bitterly, affirming that it was 
utterly impossible for her to live without Marie; 
Nicholas, a year younger, but always practical and 
reasonable, consoled himself with the thought of the 
beautiful gardens and fine collection of stuffed ani- 
mals of which his sister would become possessor by 
her marriage to a Prince of Wied ; and little Sophie, 
frankly indignant, exclaimed: — "It is too bad! I 
will tell mamma at once, and see if she will allow 
such a thing!" 

Those were bright and happy days that dawned 
on Neuwied, soon after my parents' marriage, when 
my mother, herself in the heyday of youth, led the 
revels, supported by her young brothers, the gayest 
of the gay. Dances, shooting-parties, amateur theat- 
ricals, followed one another in rapid succession, 
and the woods echoed with song and laughter of the 
happy light-footed young people who scampered 
through them from morn till night. All this has 
been told in a family chronicle, written and illus- 
trated by my father himself, and carefully pre- 
served in our archives. But the story does not go 
beyond the year 1847 ; there it suddenly breaks off. 
The festival was over ; the lights had all burnt out ; 
the fun and frolic had come to an end, and a great 
cloud of sadness seemed to descend on us and en- 
velop everything. My mother's lameness; Uncle 
Maurice's death ; the dangerous illness of my brother 
Wilhelm; all these misfortunes, occurring almost 
simultaneously, plunged our whole household in 

208 



WEIZCHEN 



gloom, and the gaiety and merry-making of those 
early days was never to return. 

Then began, with our journey to Heidelberg 
attended with so much discomfort and disappoint- 
ment, the long series of those pilgrimages to consult 
the most renowned oracles of medical science, which 
entirely occupied our lives during several years. 
The celebrated Dr. Chelius, whose advice we now 
sought, certainly did restore my brother to health 
by the treatment he prescribed, but to my mother 
he could do no good at all. With the illogical preju- 
dice of childhood, I took a great dislike to the famous 
doctor on that account, looking upon him as a most 
cruelly disposed individual, who was putting my 
mother to great pain for his own pleasure, but an 
anecdote I heard of him in later years invested him 
with a certain interest in my eyes and made me 
regret my hasty judgment. 

It appears that when, after a very hard struggle 
in his youth, Dr. Chelius had at last become cele- 
brated, he one day received a message from King 
Maximilian of Bavaria, to the effect that he was the 
latter 's son, and that the King wished to know if 
he could do anything for him. With proper spirit 
Chelius replied, that having done without a father 
for all these years, he thought that he could get on 
without one very well in future! 

We spent the year '48 in Heidelberg, coming in 
for all the excitement of the Eevolution, with which 
we children were vastly pleased ; it amused us to see 
bands of men wearing red caps, and armed with 
scythes, go past shouting and singing, and above al] 
14 209 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



we were delighted with the exploits of the "Free 
Companions," — volunteers who apparently found 
our garden the most convenient place for their rifle- 
practice. We felt no alarm, even when someone, 
who was just then standing close beside me, kindly 
helping me to arrange my dolPs wig, was struck on 
the forehead, fortunately, as it happened, by a spent 
bullet, which glanced off without inflicting any real 
injury. 

But we were warned at last that we had better 
leave without further delay, and the return journey 
was not accomplished without peril. The name of 
the demagogue, Hecker, was scrawled everywhere 
in the dust that covered our travelling-carriage, on 
the box of which my father, disguised as a servant, 
sat beside the coachman. In Mannheim the carriage 
was surrounded by a noisy group of men in red 
caps, who tore open the door, and contemptuously 
exclaiming: — "Nothing but women!" banged it 
again. When we reached Biebrich, we found the 
castle empty. Everyone had left in haste, and we 
had to go to an hotel to spend the night. This was 
a cold and comfortless reception indeed — no one 
expecting us, or even seeming to know or care who 
we were — in the place where a welcome as warm as 
it was ceremonious usually awaited us — servants 
lining the steps, sentries presenting arms, and the 
Duke, surrounded by his courtiers, advancing to 
meet his sister and her family. The contrast was 
so complete and chilling, I might well feel shocked 
and hurt and dazed, as if the solid ground had sud- 
denly given way under my feet, to find myself so 

210 



WEIZCHEN 



small, so unimportant, so utterly unrecognised — and 
just in my dear Biebrich, the paradise of my child- 
hood, where, as in Wiesbaden, I had spent my hap- 
piest days, made much of and enjoying the nearest 
approach to being petted and spoilt that I had ever 
known. This sensation of bewilderment, as of one 
walking in a topsy-turvy world, was carried to its 
height by the familiar address of the chamber-maid 
in the inn, whom I watched preparing our beds. Al- 
together I received a lesson on the insignificance 
of worldly honours and distinction, and perhaps 
even on the instability of all mundane things, more 
to the point in teaching me humility than any of my 
mother's homilies on the subject. 

A great change came over our household after the 
year '48, whose events had swept away half our 
revenues, our style of living was much simplified, 
the little court disbanded, even some of the servants 
■ — among them my mother's first waiting-maid — dis- 
missed, and everything reorganised on a much 
smaller, more modest scale. And to what purpose 
had been henceforth pomp and lavish expenditure, 
in a house in which sorrow and sickness had taken 
up their abode ! The diminished retinue, the cessa- 
tion of open-handed hospitality, those were as 
naught beside the weightier cares that combined to 
crush the gay spirits of the revellers, and in the 
first place, of the young chatelaine herself. The 
death of her beloved brother Maurice was a blow 
from which my mother never recovered, and the 
shock much accelerated the morbid symptoms that 
had just begun to declare themselves. Never shall 

211 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



I forget the heartrending expression on her face, as 
bathed in tears, she made her appearance in the 
nursery to tell ns children, that the bright, hand- 
some, gallant Uncle Maurice was dead! So small 
was I at the time, that I could not help finding a 
little consolation in the black and black and white 
striped dresses made for me on this occasion — it was 
a change from the perpetual white ! But the gloom 
of mourning did not pass away; my mother's health 
had begun to fail. I remember her listless gait, how 
she seemed each day to find greater difficulty in 
going about, holding on to every piece of furniture 
for support, and then how, all at once, she could no 
longer walk at all. It seemed doubly hard that this 
should be her fate, who had been the gayest of the 
gay, blithe as a lark and lightfooted as a gazelle, 
out-tiring all her partners in the dance, and out- 
stripping every one of her young companions in 
their mad races through the woods, bounding up and 
down the hills as if she scarcely touched the ground ! 

Throughout those mirthful days, in their maddest 
pranks and most reckless fun, it was always to 
"Weizchen that the young folk turned for help to 
carry out their most extravagant devices. They 
knew they might count on her to aid and abet them 
in every harmless plot, indeed her own inventive 
genius sometimes furnished invaluable hints, as in 
the memorable birthday reception prepared by my 
mother for Uncle Maurice, in retaliation for a prac- 
tical joke he had played on her a short time before. 
Eemembering his sister's fondness for the Nassau 
bonbons, a sweetmeat her father's cooks excelled in 

212 



WEIZCHEN 



preparing, the young man had sent her a magnificent 
box of these, which she handed round with delight 
to her guests one evening, only discovering by the 
wry faces or half -smothered ejaculations of disgust 
of those who partook of the confectionery, that the 
interior of these well-sugared delicacies by no means 
corresponded with their tempting outside! It was 
to punish him for this sorry trick — a little too much 
resembling, it must be owned, the "merrie jestes" 
with which Louis XI is credited — that my mother 
planned the following revenge. During the gala 
dinner being given in my uncle's honour, a servant 
suddenly made the announcement that the three 
Graces begged for a moment's audience, to present 
their congratulations to the Prince. Amused and 
smiling the young man left his seat and advanced 
to the door, where he was met by a trio, resembling 
the Three Furies, or the witches in "Macbeth" — 
anything rather than the vision of feminine loveli- 
ness to have been expected. Three of the most 
gaunt and ill-favoured washerwomen of the district 
had been selected by the malicious Weizchen, 
crowned with roses, and clad in snow-white draper- 
ies, through which their bony necks and red arms 
looked only the more frightful, and primed with 
champagne in order that they might enact their part 
with the greater zest, they surrounded their victim, 
whose short-sight prevented him from seeing them 
distinctly until at quite close quarters. Poor Mau- 
rice, whose susceptibility to female charms was only 
equalled by his aversion for every form of ugliness, 
promptly turned and fled; but the ladies, nothing 

213 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



daunted, pursued and again drew him into their 
midst, executing a wild bacchanalian dance while 
they tried to imprison and bind fast the fugitive 
with the long green garlands they carried. At last, 
breaking away from his tormentors, and jumping 
over chairs and tables which he upset in his flight, 
the young man sank, breathless and exhausted, be- 
hind a sofa in one corner of the room, whilst at a 
sign from my mother, the Maenads vanished. The 
hero of the adventure only came forth from his 
hiding-place, when a few minutes later Weizchen en- 
tered the room, to ask my mother demurely if she 
were content with the way her orders had been exe- 
cuted. Then, springing to his feet, he seized 
Weizchen round the waist, and kissed her so heart- 
ily, that all present who were not in the secret 
believed that this also was a part of the masquerade. 

I should never have finished if I were to try to 
tell of all the amusing scenes that then took place, 
of some of which I retain a faint recollection, while 
others are only known to me by hearsay. One of 
the beautifully illuminated pages of my father's 
"Chronicle of Monrepos," depicts the mock solemni- 
ties of the reception awaiting my mother and him- 
self on one of their visits to the castle of Braunfels. 
The customary bevy of white-robed maidens, de- 
puted to hand my mother a bouquet with an address 
of welcome, was on this occasion represented by all 
the elderly gentlemen present in the castle — the 
Prince's old bachelor uncles and their friends — who 
attired themselves in the traditional white muslin 
frocks and wreaths of roses, and with well- simulated 

214 



WEIZCHEN 



bashfulness recited verses in honour of the visitor. 

The amateur theatricals too, what delight they 
gave, and how many diverting incidents sprang from 
these performances ! One of them must find a place 
here. An aunt of mine, whose height would very 
well enable her to pass for a man, had agreed to 
enact a male character in some comedy, and for this 
she was to wear a suit of my father's clothes, stipu- 
lating, however, that neither he nor any other of 
the opposite sex were to know of this, — the imper- 
sonation was to remain a profound secret to the 
audience. But unfortunately on the evening in 
question, as my father sat quietly smoking with a 
few friends, his valet appeared, and without the 
slightest circumlocution, bluntly requested "the loan 
of the brocaded breeches, for Her Serene Highness, 
Princess Solius!' ' Inextinguishable laughter broke 
forth from all present, and I really doubt whether 
my aunt's success in the part itself, which she now 
threw up, would have been as great, or have pro- 
voked such hilarity. 

In nearly all such episodes Weizchen was mixed 
up. It was to her that one turned, in every emer- 
gency, and not merely in our own household, but on 
both sides of the family, she came to be looked upon 
as a sort of institution, something belonging to us 
all, and firmly rooted in the past, but no less indis- 
pensable to the present. The Duchess of Olden- 
burg, my mother 's eldest sister, never came back to 
the Ehineland without at once sending for Weizchen, 
in order to revive old memories, and live bygone 
scenes over again with her, who was herself a piece 

215 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



of family history, the repository of so many a family 
secret. 

It is on the lighter side of her nature that I have 
chiefly dwelt, on the easier duties of those happier 
days. Bnt in the hour of trial, Weizchen proved 
herself no less true and devoted, standing firmly at 
her post, as unwearied in her nursing, in her care 
and attendance on my mother, as she had formerly 
been in contributing to every scheme of amusement. 
All her best qualities were shown during those years 
of sorrow, and it was perhaps the large share of the 
burden which she took upon her own shoulders, by 
which she was herself prematurely aged and sad- 
dened. She lived with us till I was about fourteen, 
and then retired with a pension to rooms assigned 
her in grandmamma's pretty house. Her memory 
is bound up with some of the happiest recollections 
of my childhood, and still at times I fancy I hear 
her voice ring out in one or other of the dear old 
melodies — the plaintive ballad of ' ' Emma and Egin- 
hard," or Mozart's graceful " Lullaby,' ' which she 
sang so often to us in the bygone days, in the old 
home by the Rhine. 



CHAPTER XIV 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 

Of these there are so many — kind honest hearts, 
whose worth I learnt to recognise in bygone days, 
and whom it would be impossible for me to leave un- 
noticed here. I cannot name them all, but all are in 
my thoughts, as I select just a few from their num- 
ber to inscribe among my Penates. 

The one I would mention first, the truly excellent 
women who when Weizchen retired undertook the 
management of our household, was with us through 
those especially trying years in which my parents' 
ill-health and poor Otto's constant sufferings made 
the interior of our house more resemble that of a 
hospital than of an ordinary home. Frau Baring 
was a gentle-voiced, mild-eyed woman past middle- 
age, who had herself experienced much sorrow, and 
this very fact made her more fitted for the sur- 
roundings than a younger, livelier person would have 
proved. Not that there was anything morose or 
depressing about our new housekeeper, of whom 
I happened to see a good deal, it being my mother's 
wish now that my more serious studies were finished, 
that I should gain some practical knowledge of the 
matters under her control. So I was duly initiated 
into some of the mysteries of her domain, watching 
her at her work of superintending, and giving 
orders, learning the art of book-keeping and even 
making an occasional inspection with her of larders, 

217 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



pantry and linen-closet. As for the results achieved, 
I cannot look back on these with very great satisfac- 
tion, as all such commonplace details of daily life 
seemed to me scarcely worth the time and trouble 
bestowed on them, and I by no means relished being 
called upon to waste any thought on such dry and 
prosaic matters. Entering the daily or weekly ex- 
penditure in an account-book appeared to me the 
most cruel trial of human patience that could possi- 
bly have been devised, but the very horror with 
which the sight of these dreary ledgers inspired me, 
did but increase my admiration and respect for all 
those whose duty compels them to pass their days in 
the contemplation of dull columns of meaningless 
figures! In my personal distaste for all the petty 
details pertaining to the direction of a household, 
I was therefore but the more disposed to feel sym- 
pathy for good Frau Baring, and indeed for all her 
myrmidons, having often had occasion to observe 
the conscientious zeal with which all of these, every 
maid-servant and laundress down to the meanest 
scullion, performed the duties laid on them. So 
many instances have I known of these humblest 
functions patiently and punctiliously discharged, 
that I for one can never join in the complaints too 
often raised against the servant-class. Every ser- 
vice rendered us seemed always to be a labour of 
love, and this experience can surely not have been 
confined to ourselves alone. 

I have often thought that I perhaps owed my 
magnificent health in a certain measure to my nurse, 
the simple peasant-woman picked out for her own 

218 




H.M. Queen Elisabeth of Roumania 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 



fine physique and sound constitution to be my foster- 
mother. In any ease it must have been from her 
that I derived my simple tastes in matters gastro- 
nomic, and this has doubtless much contributed to 
my well-being my whole life long. As a young girl 
I exulted frankly in my health and strength, nor was 
I in the least ashamed of my rosy cheeks and plump- 
ness, the pallid and enervated type of woman not 
being then proposed as a model, and no one having 
the slightest desire to look like a ghost. But I 
thought little enough of such matters — I was better 
employed, with my books, my work, my music, and 
whenever our own dear invalids did not demand my 
special care, in paying visits to the sick people on 
our estates. 

A dull sad existence, some might say, for a grow- 
ing girl, but it had its joys, and deeper and holier 
ones than can ever spring from the mere quest of 
happiness. Moments of depression and discourage- 
ment at times were mine, for who is there has not 
known such, but the natural buoyancy of youth pre- 
vailed, and already in the exercise of my pen, I had 
a source of comfort ever at hand. 

And certainly the example of the good faithful 
souls around me, of their untiring devotion, con- 
tributed not a little to nerve and strengthen me 
whenever my own courage seemed like to fail. 
How weak and faint-hearted must I account myself, 
when I looked in Frau Baring's face, to read there 
the tale of bygone suffering — of struggles valiantly 
fought out, despair triumphantly lived down. Little 
by little I won her confidence, and she told me the 

219 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



story of her life — of the grim fight sustained with 
direst poverty, since the day when her husband, a 
government under-official, had lost his post through 
ill-health, and the task of providing for him as well 
as for their child had devolved on her alone. She 
could speak quite calmly of her bereavement, could 
take comfort in the thought that the husband and 
daughter she had loved so dearly and tended so 
well, were both at rest at last, and could suffer no 
more, but when she told of the privations they had 
endured, her lips quivered uncontrollably, and the 
tears trickled down her faded cheeks. No sermon 
preached me on the duty of resignation could have 
been half as effective as this living testimony to the 
severity of the hardships borne thus uncomplain- 
ingly. And this woman, herself so sorely tried, was 
full of sympathy for the troubles that pressed so 
heavily on my young life. Of these we never spoke, 
but I saw that she understood, and felt for me, and 
the knowledge made my burden lighter. 

For several years we lived as if on an island, shut 
off from the rest of the world, and out of reach of 
even most intimate friends. It was better so. There 
seemed to be no leisure then for the pleasures of 
social intercourse. They only who themselves were 
suffering or in need of help, were encouraged to 
draw near. Besides the serious view of life which 
solitude thus engendered in us, it had another salu- 
tary effect, in preventing any comparison between 
our lot and that of others, in keeping far from us 
the faintest suspicion that there was aught unusual 
in our existence. From our parents' example, as 

220 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 



well as from their precepts, we learned a lesson of 
deep import, that of the absolute subordination of 
bodily to spiritual needs — we were taught to regard 
our bodies as mere servants and ministers to the 
nobler half of our nature, and to treat any mere 
physical suffering or inconvenience as a matter of 
but small moment. Any of the little ailments or 
accidents which weaker parents are inclined to be- 
moan as real misfortunes to their offspring, were 
put on one side by my mother as wholly unworthy 
of attention, with the remark that such things might 
happen to anyone, that few people had not some- 
thing more to complain of! Her own fear was of 
being betrayed into any weakness, and I still remem- 
ber the tone in which she murmured — "I must not 
give way!" when in watching by her side the pro- 
tracted agony of poor Otto's death-struggle, I had 
given vent to a cry of anguish and despair. So I 
learnt from her to smother my feelings, and I told 
myself how thankful I ought to be, in being blest 
with parents so exceptionally endowed, that I could 
but look up to them with reverence, and strive to 
follow in their steps. 

Another lesson in contentment was constantly 
given us by our humble friends, by the poor folk 
round about, whom from my earliest years I was 
allowed to visit. One dear old woman I have spoken 
of elsewhere; the little sketch I entitled "German 
Happiness" is but a reproduction of a conversation 
held with her, for I felt that no better specimen 
could be given of that peculiar form of content- 
ment with one's lot in life that is typical of the 

221 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



German people. "Hans in Luck" is perhaps the 
truest piece of folk-lore that exists — the earliest 
form in which we find the national characteristic 
depicted. All happiness, it is well known, lies in 
ourselves, and to the cheerful temperament I speak 
of, it is to be found everywhere. In every misfor- 
tune such people as my dear old peasant-woman can 
see some cause for thankfulness ; instead of shedding 
tears over a broken arm they rejoice in the one left 
sound, and comfort themselves in the direst straits 
by the thought that things might have been much 
worse still! The charm of my old friend's simple 
words, so faithfully reproduced by me on a former 
occasion, lies chiefly in the raciness of the Khenish 
dialect, and would not lend itself to translation. But 
I am glad to think that her last moments were bright- 
ened by the flowers I sent her, for faithful to the 
promise I had once given, I took care that these 
should surround her before she breathed her last, as 
an earnest that on the coffin and grave they should 
not be lacking. There were many others, men and 
women alike, in whom the habit of making the 
best of things had become a second nature, and 
the uncomplaining, even cheerful simplicity with 
which their load of misery was borne, can surely be 
accounted little less than heroic. 

Much suffering was always caused by the inun- 
dations, which in certain years spread havoc 
throughout the whole region. Boats were sent out 
to carry food from house to house, and I remember 
going in one of these with Baron Bibra, steward 
of the domain, and one of our oldest friends, and 

222 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 

others of the gentlemen composing our little court, 
to assist in distributing coffee, bread, and soup, to 
the poor people in their flooded habitations. In one 
of these about forty human beings were crowded 
together in two tiny rooms in which they had taken 
refuge, and in their midst a corpse — for the church- 
yard was under water also, like the bakers' shops 
and everything else. It was a terrible sight. And 
another year, somewhat later, much damage was 
done by a hurricane of exceptional violence that 
broke out at the same moment, devastating the 
beautiful park behind the castle. There was one 
avenue of magnificent linden-trees, which was almost 
entirely swept away during that terrible night, 
hardly one out of the scores of fine old trees of 
many hundred years' growth being left standing 
next morning. For the moment my brother was 
too much occupied in bringing help to his poorer 
neighbours, many of whose lives were saved by his 
personal exertions, to have time to mourn the loss 
of his trees, but afterwards it was a grief to all of 
us to behold the destruction of our beloved park. 
An enormous quantity of wood, about eight thous- 
and cubic feet in measurement, was carted away from 
the wreckage. I wept for my dear old trees. They 
had been planted by our forefathers in centuries 
gone by, and had looked on at the good and evil 
fortunes of our family for all those years. To me 
they were especially dear. They had been the con- 
fidants of my inmost thoughts. How often have I 
leant out from my window and talked to them! 
There was one white poplar to which I told all my 

223 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



secrets, and I listened to its murmured replies, as 
its leaves rustled, gently stirred by the night breeze 
that came sighing across the rippling Rhine. 

That was before the great storm, the one I have 
just told of, in the year 1876. But long before that, 
in my childhood and early youth, I had witnessed 
some only less terrible. The position of Neuwied 
exposed us to the full force of every gale that swept 
up the Rhine, each gust of wind being caught as it 
were in the bend of the river wherein the little town 
lies, and eddying round and round the castle with 
pitiless rage, seemed in a trap from which it sought 
to break away. With the howling of the wind, and 
the crashing sound of the tiles torn off the roof, we 
could often scarce hear ourselves speak in the rooms 
inside, and very often too it was hardly possible to 
open the doors, so great was the draught. On the 
river itself, with its waves lashed to fury, the spec- 
tacle was one of mingled terror and grandeur. And 
I was well situated to have a full view of it on each 
such occasion, my windows directly overlooking the 
Rhine. I used to watch the boats and rafts, could 
see them distinctly and hear the rowers sing out, 
as they dipped their oars in cadence. Those big 
rafts were most picturesque, and there was some- 
thing poetic, in harmony with the scene, in the cry 
of the rowers: — "Hesseland, France!" instead of 
right and left. "Hesseland, France!" — the sound 
still rings in my ears. 

But one day the wind was wilder than its wont, 
the sky was murky, the Rhine chocolate-brown, with 
breakers like the sea, and the rain beat against our 

224 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 



window-panes, down which it then streamed in tor- 
rents. Suddenly a fearful shriek went up from 
the river, and looking out I saw a very big raft 
going to pieces, having been dashed against the 
landing-stage. The crew shouted for help, as one 
by one they were washed off their planks and swal- 
lowed up by the waves, and boat after boat put off 
to their assistance, succeeding in rescuing many of 
their number. But some must have been drowned 
before my eyes. And I was alone to see it, for mine 
were the only rooms that looked out that way, and 
the whole terrible little drama took place so quickly, 
I had no time to summon anyone. 

My beloved Rhine did not, however, always appear 
under this tragic aspect, nor are all my memories of 
the old home steeped in such melancholy hues. How 
beautiful it was, and the grounds how lovely in those 
old days, before the cyclone had laid low the tallest 
trees. Some of the finest specimens were quite near 
the house, and towered above it, white poplars whose 
silvery foliage contrasted strikingly with the ruddy 
hue of the copper-beeches, and the soft delicate ver- 
dure of the lindens. The world looked lovely and 
smiling indeed, as I gazed from my window and saw 
them bathed in sunshine, with the shadows of their 
waving branches dancing backwards and forwards 
on the grass. But there were other seasons; — some- 
times of long duration, — when the gloom within 
doors was so great, it seemed as if the sun never 
shone at all, and I sat alone in my room over my 
books, listening to the roaring of the wind in the 
chimney, roaring as it only roars in old and half 
15 225 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

empty houses, as if the Spirit of the Storm were 
imprisoned there! Something of this Paganini 
must surely have one day heard and have borne in 
mind when he composed those strange, weird varia- 
tions for the violin, in which the strings sob and 
moan with more than mortal anguish. Quite re- 
cently, when that melody was played before me by 
our gifted young musician, George Enesco, so 
vividly did it recall the wailing sound, as of a soul 
in distress, by which my childhood had been haunted, 
that I leant over to my young niece, who happened 
to be present, and whispered, ' ' Do you hear the voice 
of the wind in the chimneys of the old home?" — and 
she burst into tears. Ah! how often have I cried 
too in the old days, when that dismal sound rang 
in my ears, and all that I looked out upon was a 
sullen swollen flood carrying along huge blocks of 
ice, or else tossing its angry foaming waves aloft, 
beneath a sky that seemed itself weighted with lead 
and borne down to the earth, unmindful of its true 
mission to stand arched above our heads to cheer 
us! And I had no amusing books to distract my 
thoughts ; nothing but grammars and histories ! And 
the latter I abhorred, for they seemed to me to be 
but a record of human misery on a larger scale, of 
which I had only seen too much in my own small way, 
quite at close quarters. I did not want to hear of 
the wretched squabbles that had gone on all over the 
earth, of how men hated and vilified one another, 
how they quarrelled and fought. History is noth- 
ing but glorified misery after all ! I knew of course 
that these were frightful heresies, and was very 

226 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 



much ashamed of my own deficient powers of ad- 
miration, but it was perhaps not very much to be 
wondered at, considering the way in which historic 
facts had been rammed down my throat in my lesson- 
hours. It was natural enough that my thoughts 
should wander in any other direction, and that I 
should seize my pen, and try to give them form. 
These first products of my Muse were surely very 
poor stuff, but at least I had the good sense to 
consign the whole of my early verses to the flames. 
The same fate befell — a little later on — my first dra- 
matic venture, a long play with six-and-twenty char- 
acters, and a highly sensational plot, involving mur- 
der and madness, arson and similar attractions. I 
did not destroy this at once, but coming across it a 
few years later, I enjoyed a good laugh over it, 
before I burnt it. 

I must not forget to mention our town musicians, 
an institution that was a relic of olden times. 
Many of these had been in service in the castle, 
where, as in many another of the smaller German 
courts, they had formed a most excellent orchestra, 
trained under their master's orders. Such an 
orchestra, composed entirely of servants, — footmen, 
lackeys, valets, grooms, — existed still when my 
father married, and both he and his young wife 
often played quartets and quintets with their own 
domestics. The service may perhaps sometimes 
have suffered a little in consequence ; it has happened 
that the flute-player, standing behind my mother's 
chair, would begin humming his part, forgetting 

227 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



that lie was waiting at table. But if the waiting 
was indifferent, the music, on the other hand, was 
very good! After the year 1848, when our whole 
establishment was so reduced, several of these old 
servants established themselves as musicians in the 
town, and not only my brother and I, but his chil- 
dren since, took lessons from some of them. 

Connected with our hospital in Neuwied were a 
number of worthy, kind-hearted people — mostly 
ladies belonging to the town, who were themselves 
busy enough in their own households, but who yet 
found time to work for the poor, and to visit the 
families in greatest distress. And of all those chari- 
table souls Frau Hachenberg, for nearly forty years 
president of the Ladies Nursing Union, was the 
most active and zealous. She was the very essence 
of Christian charity, and withal of such strong 
commonsense and so practical in all her methods, 
that every undertaking flourished in her hands. It 
was she who founded the hospital with but a thaler 
to commence building. Her confidence never wa- 
vered; she knew the funds would be forthcoming. 
And the faith and trust which were hers she man- 
aged to impart to others in turn; so that her work 
has continued growing, and has increased to three 
times its original size. The good deaconesses of 
Kaiserswerth have been attached to the hospital 
from the first, and to them also a large share of 
honour is due. 

Immense capability of self-sacrifice must be theirs 
who would devote themselves to the service of suf- 

228 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 



f ering humanity. In Frau Hachenberg the spirit of 
self-sacrifice knew no bounds. And her talent for 
organisation was on the same scale. She was no 
sentimentalist, nor in the least given to the use of 
pious phraseology. Quiet, determined, straightfor- 
ward, her simplicity and directness were more im- 
proving than the elegant manners of many a more 
fashionable woman, who would indeed have been at 
a loss to control the heterogeneous elements which 
Frau Hachenberg dealt with so skilfully. With a 
single glance she seemed to survey a whole situa- 
tion, and grasp all its contingencies. I could never 
cease admiring her, and it was from her I learnt 
nearly all that in my youth I knew respecting the 
management of benevolent institutions. So strongly 
did she set the seal of her own remarkable personal- 
ity on every department of our nursing home — for 
that modest appellation would better befit our little 
hospital at its start — that her spirit seems to pre- 
side and dominate it still, to this day. Whenever on 
one of my visits to my old home, I attend a meeting 
of the Union, I feel as if I must find Frau Hachen- 
berg there, in her accustomed place, coming forward 
to receive me, and it is as if the fifty years had gone 
past like a single day, for there, at all events, every- 
thing seems unchanged. 

Unchanged — but grown and developed. From 
those small beginnings great things have sprung, 
round that centre a whole wide scheme of benevolent 
institutions has grouped itself. On its fiftieth anni- 
versary, at the jubilee of the hospital, my thoughts 

229 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



flew back to its founders, and a quaint old rhyme 
that Baron Bibra, one of them, was fond of repeat- 
ing, came into my head, telling how — ' ' On each grey 
grimy town, as the angels look down," — they weep 
over the blindness and folly of poor human beings, 
toiling and struggling to raise mighty monuments 
here on earth, where we are but passing guests, — 
' ' While we build not in Heaven, and scarce have 
a care for Eternity's mansions, awaiting us there!" 
I know not whence he had the homely verses, but 
they always went to my heart. How few of us build 
for Eternity, and yet how easy it were to take a 
small piece of Heaven into the earthly habitations we 
are at such pains to construct ! 

Yet those earthly abodes are very dear to us at 
times, and rightly so, for the sake of all those who 
have lived in them. I love every corner, every stone 
of my dear Neuwied. And not merely the castle of 
my fathers, not merely the cradle of my race, but the 
little town itself, so bright, and clean and well-kept, 
the very model of the picturesque Ehenish town, 
whose simplicity I would not exchange for all the 
luxury of Cosmopolis, and whose modest dwellings, 
and narrow, old-fashioned streets may surely com- 
pare favourably at all events on aesthetic grounds 
with the sky-scrapers of the noisy, over-crowded cit- 
ies of the New World ! So dear was ever to me my 
childhood's home, in weal and woe, even the inun- 
dations seemed something to be proud of, and I 
knew that I was not alone in this, but that many of 
the good townsfolk of Neuwied shared in the feeling 

230 



A GROUP OF HUMBLE FRIENDS 



that made me wind up one of my Bhine-songs with 
the words : 

If in our town the river 

Is a more frequent guest, 
'Tis surely that he loves us 

Better than all the rest! 

Seriously enough, it will ever seem to me a 
favoured spot, and I would have it as it is, and 
tremble when I hear the schemes discussed — it may 
be half in jest — of throwing a big bridge across the 
Ehine and giving to the industries of the quiet little 
place such development as would soon convert it 
into an important commercial town. It were a 
thousand pities ! There is little fear, I think, of our 
seeing such changes, and come what may, the Past 
is ours. I can still say my Rhine and my Neuwied, 
for my strong attachment to my birthplace and my 
native land will be with me to the last. 



CHAPTER XV 



MY TUTORS 

I use the word advisedly, the direction of my 
studies, after my twelfth year, being almost entirely 
taken out of female hands, my mother feeling more 
confidence in the competence of persons of the other 
sex to impart to me the sound and thorough instruc- 
tion she insisted on and which must moreover be in 
accordance with her own views, and not in the least 
on the pattern of the ordinary curriculum for girls. 
Eeligious instruction she had always been in the 
habit of giving us herself and she kept up the prac- 
tice until within a few weeks of my confirmation, 
preparing over night with great pains the subject 
of the lesson which she gave us every morning at 
six o'clock, and which was sometimes a theological 
disquisition, sometimes a survey of ecclesiastical his- 
tory. For these, as for all my other lessons, I had 
to write essays, rather for the purpose of obliging 
me to summarise and recapitulate systematically all 
that I had learnt, than as an encouragement to the 
expression of my own ideas; this exercise was, not- 
withstanding, probably of the greatest value to me 
as enabling me to acquire very early great facility 
with my pen. Already at quite an early age I had 
my own very decided views about style, and I re- 
member as quite a child coming into conflict with the 
very first of my male teachers — one of the masters 
from the Neuwied Grammar-school, engaged to give 

232 



MY TUTORS 



me German lessons — concerning an essay on 
' ' Springtime,' ' I had written for him. Inspired by 
so congenial a theme, I had simply let myself go, 
and the pages I handed to Herr Nohl were prob- 
ably more remarkable for originality than for aca- 
demic correctness of form. Whether he laid too much 
stress on negligencies of styles, which in my youthful 
impetuosity I was too little inclined to heed, I can 
no longer say; but I know that his unsparing criti- 
cism of my work struck me as unjust, and that the 
corrections he proposed did not seem to me to 
improve it at all. 

Latin I was taught by my brother's tutor, joining 
Wilhelm at his lessons, a plan adopted partly in 
order to give him the stimulant of emulation, but 
which became a source of unspeakable pleasure and 
profit to myself. I had such delight and displayed 
so much facility in the acquisition of a new language, 
that linguistic talent was supposed to be my special 
gift. No one understood, nor was I myself until 
long after aware, that it was language, and not lan- 
guages, that was my real concern. Unconsciously, 
I was forging for my own use the weapon that was 
to serve me later on, and this peep into the beauties 
of the Latin tongue — for a mere peep it was, since 
I laboured under the disadvantage of having to 
plunge into its mysteries at the point at which 
my brother had arrived, — was yet of immense ser- 
vice to me, in enlarging my horizon, and affording 
me a cursory inspection of the treasures of another 
world. The grammar of that noble idiom I never 
rightly mastered, it is true, conscientiously as I 

233 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



battled with it. Many and many a night have I 
fallen asleep over my books, my head resting on the 
ponderous old dictionary in which I was seeking the 
key to some involved construction in the verse, whose 
majestic cadence enchanted my ear, even before I 
had fully apprehended its true significance. My 
brother 's tastes were very different from my own ; 
it was not languages that interested him, but mathe- 
matics and the exact sciences. Inventions of all 
sorts were his special hobby, every new kind of 
machine had a special fascination for him, and he 
would have loved to be an engineer. The other 
course of lessons given us by Professor Preuner, 
on classic art, was perhaps of even greater efficiency 
in opening my eyes to the glories of the ancient 
world, since here there were no technical obscurities 
to interpose themselves between my vision and the 
masterpieces revealed. In a series of excellent 
drawings these were displayed to us, and their per- 
fection pointed out and explained with so much 
enthusiasm by our professor, himself an ardent 
devotee of Grecian art, that we in turn learned to 
know and love these treasures of antiquity so thor- 
oughly and well, my subsequent visits to the great 
European galleries containing the originals had 
nothing of strangeness or surprise, — it was but as if 
I were renewing acquaintance with old and well- 
loved friends, of whom I had lost sight for a while. 

An equal meed of gratitude, though on other 
grounds, is due from me to the old mathematician, 
Henkel, who had been my father's tutor in former 
days, and who now laboured hard, though with but 

234 



MY TUTORS 



poor results, to introduce the rudiments of his to me 
most dismal science into my very refractory brain ! 
What endless trouble the dear old man took, and 
what inexhaustible patience he displayed in the at- 
tempt to initiate me into the mysteries of progres- 
sions and equations, or even the simple extraction 
of a square root! Under his kindly tuition I filled 
many note-books, covered whole pages with figures 
supposed to calculate the logarithm of a number, 
without even knowing what a logarithm was ! Eu- 
clid I never understood at all ; I can just remember 
that in every right-angled triangle the square on the 
hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on 
the other two sides; but why? Ah! that is a very 
different matter! As for algebra, it was utterly 
incomprehensible to me, so I contented myself with 
learning a few of the formulae by heart. Just as in 
a cousin of mine, — a man of great learning, consid- 
erable literary culture, and possessed of a fine taste 
in painting, — the musical sense is entirely wanting, 
so to me the properties pertaining to number and 
quality will forever remain a sealed book. 

To my French governesses I owe thanks for hav- 
ing so thoroughly grounded me in their language, 
that I could employ it for my literary work as well 
as my mother-tongue, one of my books being written 
originally in French. They too were my guides on 
my first incursions in the glorious domain of French 
literature, whose vast treasure-house I ransacked 
greedily, dwelling with special delight on the match- 
less beauty of the great prose-writers, my ear, accus- 
tomed to the more marked cadence of German verse, 

235 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



having always, I confess, been slightly deaf to the 
melody of the Alexandrine couplet. To the earlier 
poets of course this restriction does not apply, and 
Villon and Clement Marot became each in his own 
way dear to me, as were Eonsard and the other illus- 
trious members of the Pleiade. 

Then came a moment, on which I can look back 
with a certain special satisfaction, during which I 
was left without either governess or preceptor of 
any sort to pursue my studies entirely on my own 
account, save for the advice given me for my reading 
by my parents. Those were the months which I 
devoured with avidity every book that came in my 
way — even history, I remember, and not only such 
works as Schiller's "Thirty Years' War" and "Ke- 
volt of the Netherlands," rendered fascinating by 
their literary style, but, to please my mother, the 
drier pages of Becker's great Universal History, 
in its fourteen volumes, were all waded through, 
rather more perfunctorily, I fear, than some of my 
lighter reading! Still, the hours spent thus were 
surely not altogether lost, and the habit of inde- 
pendent study, once acquired, never left me. 

But this course of independent study could not of 
course be allowed to go on indefinitely, and with the 
professor on whom, after much deliberation, my 
parents ' choice ultimately fell, they, like myself, had 
every reason to be satisfied. This was a very young 
savant, named Sauerwein, a protege of the Prince 
Consort's friend, Baron Stockmar, by whom he was 
recommended to my parents, as being capable of un- 
dertaking the entire direction of my studies, from 

236 



MY TUTORS 



the stage at which I had now arrived. He was a 
man of quite remarkable attainments, his linguistic 
talent in particular having gained for him the repu- 
tation of a second Mezzofanti, with such apparent 
ease did he apply himself to acquiring each new lan- 
guage to add to his already goodly store — about 
thirty, it seems to me, he spoke quite fluently at the 
time when I knew him. To myself the charm of 
Sauerwein's teaching lay in his having no cut and 
dried pedagogic method ; not considering it the chief 
object of education to alter the direction towards 
which his pupil's tastes and abilities naturally 
turned, he had no wish to force my mind into a 
groove into which it could never fit itself, but rather 
made it his aim to adapt himself to the exigencies of 
the situation. In after years my tutor owned to me 
how great his amazement had been, when in the place 
of the child of thirteen he believed his future pupil 
to be, he found a young girl, tall for her years and 
very self -composed, who in a few well-chosen words 
thanked him for the trouble he was about to give 
himself. And his surprise reached its height when 
the following morning he heard the ' f Prisoner of 
Chillon" very dramatically recited by the pupil who 
was to learn English from him! 

It was well for me that I was so thoroughly pre- 
pared, as to be the better able to profit by the un- 
usual and really admirable course of instruction 
Herr Sauerwein now entered on. Its range was 
wide and varied, history — and English constitu- 
tional history in particular — occupying a very con- 
siderable part of it, an exhaustive knowledge of the 

237 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

political development of that country being deemed 
essential, at a moment when all other nations seemed 
bent on blindly copying English customs and insti- 
tutions, however little compatible these might be 
with their own mind and character. Many a State 
has since had to learn to its cost, the mistake of 
transplanting growths of foreign culture upon their 
soil, and the impossibility of amalgamating these 
alien elements with the national life. But at that 
time, in Germany as elsewhere, the admiration for all 
things English made historians like Macaulay and 
Carlyle extremely popular, and also encouraged the 
study of English literature. That part of the pro- 
gramme was pure delight to me. Under my new 
preceptor's guidance I obtained a comprehensive 
survey of the whole vast field, from Chaucer to mod- 
ern times. The Scottish dialect was no bar to my 
appreciation of Burns ; many of his poems I learnt 
by heart, and can remember still. But the literature 
of my own country was not neglected, and here also 
we started reviewing it from its origins, deciphering 
early Gothic fragments, continuing our quest 
through Eddas and Nibelungen, and lingering with 
joyful pride among the heroes sung of by Gottfried 
and by Wolfram, in the poems that are so glorious 
a national heritage. So well did I love them, the 
noble knights of King Arthur's Court, and the 
doughty champions of the Holy Grail, that I can 
hardly forgive Wagner the liberties he has taken 
with these fine old stories, in order to suit them to 
the requirements of his music, glorious though that 
be. The versions of these sublime legends given 

238 



MY TUTORS 



by Wagner came doubtless as a revelation to those 
to whom they were as yet unknown ; — but to us, who 
had lived among them and loved them from our 
birth, his arbitrary mode of treatment was rather of 
the nature of a sacrilege. The term is perhaps too 
strong, but I cannot forget my keen disappointment 
at certain features of the representations at Bay- 
reuth. It is on this account that I prefer the Meis- 
ter singer to all Wagner's other works, since he had 
here no legend to alter or spoil, but simply a mate- 
rial which he could turn and twist as he pleased, and 
which could only gain by his skilful handling and 
by the musical atmosphere which his genius con- 
jured up around the personages of his drama. 

From the study of our old Germanic legends in 
their epic form, we passed on to the early poetic 
monuments of other lands, collections of primitive 
songs and ballads being ransacked for their best 
specimens, whilst the great national epics were made 
the object of more exhaustive scrutiny. Through- 
out the whole of this vast field of exploration, my 
tutor's remarkable linguistic equipment made him 
the surest and best qualified of guides ; Sanscrit and 
Russian were as familiar to him as the Neo-Latin 
tongues or Celtic idioms; snatches of Hungarian 
song alternated on his lips with verses of the Per- 
sian and Arabic poets; and his reading was as ex- 
tensive as his literary taste was sound. Some of 
the fine old poems with which I then became ac- 
quainted — the "Kalerala" or "Ramayana" and 
<< Mahalharata ,, for instance, in which the soul of a 
whole race has been enshrined and preserved, have 

239 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



since by the talent and industry of translators, and 
increased facilities of publication, been made easily 
accessible to all; but in those days neither the Fin- 
nish, nor the great epics of Hindustan, were popu- 
larly known, and it was no mean privilege I enjoyed, 
in being led through these labyrinths of delight 
by one to whom every step of the way was familiar. 

It was Sauerwein's aim, to give me something 
more than a superficial acquaintance with all that 
is best in the literature of the whole world; our 
course of reading was in consequence strangely 
diversified ; Ossian and the Minnesanger, Sakuntala 
and the 4 ' Gerusalemme Liberata," these were but 
a few of the multitudinous and bewildering contrasts 
forced upon my youthful brain, to which some credit 
is perhaps due for having borne without ill results so 
unusual a strain. On my progress in Italian Herr 
Sauerwein laid special stress, and, as I afterwards 
learnt, from the very kindest motives. He was well 
aware both of my poetic proclivities and of the per- 
sistent attempts to stifle these, and, thinking it a 
pity that my imaginative powers should not have 
fair play, he quietly encouraged me under cover 
of the Italian essays set me and into which no one 
else looked, to give my fancy the reins and write 
as the spirit prompted. Long after, he showed me 
a whole pile of these compositions, and told me of 
the satisfaction he had felt in watching the dawn 
of a talent, of whose existence no one else, and I 
myself least of all, was really cognisant at that time. 
Little did he think, when he recited to me some of 
the old Welsh songs, that one day, in the assembly 

240 



MY TUTORS 



of the bards, I should be acclaimed by them as one 
of their number. Nor could my mother foresee, in 
the infinite pains she bestowed on improving my 
handwriting, that the Gothic and ornamental letters 
she set before me as models would become to me 
as a simple running-hand, and that I should fill whole 
volumes with finely traced characters, imitating the 
missals illuminated with such care and reverence by 
pious monks of old. 

I had as schoolroom a little room leading out of 
my mother's, so that she could be present at all my 
lessons, in the next room, even when she was too ill 
to leave her bed. Few mothers I think can have 
taken their duties more seriously. Our religious in- 
struction, as I said, she always gave us herself, 
assisted by my father. Her old clerical friend, Pas- 
tor Dilthey, came and stayed with us at Monrepos 
just a few weeks before my confirmation, to prepare 
me for it, but the real work of preparation had been 
accomplished by my mother beforehand. The ex- 
amination that precedes the ceremony took place in 
Monrepos, in our own woods, in the presence of more 
than a hundred people, members of our family on 
both sides and many friends, and among the latter 
that most constant of friends, the Empress Augusta, 
who never missed an opportunity of showing her 
affection and regard. Never shall I forget that 
solemn moment of my life, and my dear little Otto's 
touching words, which he wrote for me in the little 
volume of the "Imitation" he gave me in remem- 
brance of the day. For some time before the con- 
firmation, in order that I might give my whole 
16 241 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



thoughts to preparing for so serious an event, my 
music-lessons had been stopped; I had not been 
allowed to practise at all, so that it was with renewed 
energy that I returned to it afterwards. The riding- 
lessons which I now had from one of my uncle's 
equerries, a most excellent riding-master, gave me 
less pleasure. This exercise, like dancing, seemed 
dull to me, from lack of intellectual stimulus. 

But I should never have done if I tried to enumer- 
ate all those who contributed to my education, and 
from whom at some time or other I have learnt. It 
was not always from one's regular professors that 
the most useful lessons came. We are forever 
learning, for Life itself is a school from which 
there is no playing truant, and whose teaching only 
stops at the grave. As for educational systems and 
theories, Nature, the greatest teacher of all, often 
laughs these to scorn. The best of them is but a bed 
of Procrustes, to fit which human limbs are ruth- 
lessly lopped or stretched. Wiser were we to leave 
to Nature's self the task of fashioning each individ- 
ual in youth. She has not made all on one pattern, 
and diversity, not uniformity, is her aim. 



CHAPTER XVI 

MARIE 

Whestevek my lips pronounce the beloved name, I 
am choked with the tears that gather round my 
heart, and silently overflowing, suffuse my eyes. She 
was the sunshine of my youth, illuminating it with 
her own radiant brightness, with her affection, her 
irrepressible swiftness of perception and joyful 
play of fancy, with the unspeakable tenderness that 
was hers. As children we were always together, 
the three Bibras and we three. There was a per- 
petual interchange of letters and messages, little 
notes constantly making their way across the quad- 
rangle that lay between the castle and their house, 
with some such whimsically worded invitation as 
the following: "The three little Widgeons request 
the pleasure of the three little Bearers' company to 
tea." Or, it might be, the other way round. We 
were all of about the same age, Marie being born 
in the same year as my brother Wilhelm, her brother 
Berthold and I the preceding year, whilst our poor 
Otto, had he lived, would be the same age as her 
sister, Louise, Countess Bernstorff, sole survivor 
of that trio. But death had already thinned the 
ranks of the Bibra family, two dear children having 
been laid quite early in the tomb. These were the 
baby Anna, who died in our house at Monrepos, 
and whose little waxen face and cold white hands I 
well remember, and the little Max, Marie's darling, 

243 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



a fine manly little fellow, whose loss the elder sister 
never ceased to deplore. Her beantifnl eyes, soft 
and limpid as those of a gazelle, ran over with tears 
at the mention of his name. Those tears seemed 
always ready to flow, as if her heart were over- 
full, and it needed but a word to stir the depths 
and bring them to the surface. How quietly they 
coursed down the fair young cheeks, never redden- 
ing them or distorting the delicate features, but 
giving her the appearance of a blossom refreshed by 
rain. And those lovely lustrous eyes looked only 
the more brilliant for the tears they had shed, lit 
up by a soft steady radiance that I have never seen 
elsewhere. . . . But how can I find words to tell 
of her sweetness, of all she was to me, my hearts 
best friend, the dear companion of my youth ! 

Thrown together as we were by circumstances, 
and with so much that was sympathetic in our 
natures, we were drawn yet closer by the hand of 
Fate, by a certain similarity in the fortunes — or 
rather in the ill-fortune that befell our families. 
There is perhaps no stronger tie than that which 
springs from an affliction borne in common, and the 
friendship that united Marie von Bibra and myself, 
founded on the sorrows we had shared, but little 
resembled that which ordinarily exists between girls 
of our age. Young as she was, and naturally light- 
hearted, she had known much sorrow. After the 
baby-sister, and the little brother whom she loved 
so well, she was fated to see the only remaining one, 
Berthold, called away one springtime in the bloom 
and pride of youth. It was on a cold dull May day 

244 



MARIE 



— how unlike the May mornings of poetry and 
legend! — that I stood with her beside the coffin in 
which her brother had just been laid, and together 
we afterwards wove the garlands that went with him 
to the grave. And in all the anguish of the years 
of Otto's martyrdom it was she who supported and 
comforted me, when the load of sorrow would other- 
wise have seemed too heavy to be borne. These 
were no weak, no ordinary ties, that bound our souls 
together, and the fellowship of sorrow rests on a 
firmer basis than any other fraternity. But our 
joys were in common too, and how much increased, 
by being shared! 

Thus we grew up together, in joy and sorrow, 
until the day when, coming from poor Otto's death- 
bed, Baron Bibra said, as he wrung my father's 
hand, "Before the year is out, another of my dear 
children will lie under the earth!" — "Yes, yes," he 
continued, in answer to his friend's look of horror 
and amazement, "she coughs just like Berthold, — 
it is only the beginning, but I know the tone, — she 
too must go!" 

It was only too true. Marie, who was just six- 
teen, was taken away to the sea by her parents ; but 
scarcely six months later, a message was brought me 
by a dear and trusted friend, to prepare me for the 
shock of seeing her again. Far from deriving any 
benefit from the sea-air, she had come back with 
inflammation of the lungs, and already all hope was 
given up. My one wish was to fly to her bed- 
side ; but even then I had to wait some days to see 
her, till she had rallied a little and had strength to 

245 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



talk to me. Ah ! how sad was that meeting ! Death 
was in her face, in the hectic flush on her cheeks, in 
the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, in the transpar- 
ent whiteness of her hands, as she stretched them 
towards me, lying in bed, with the magnificent 
tresses of her fair silky hair, that usually crowned 
her head like an aureole, hanging in two heavy 
braids across the pillow. She could not raise her 
voice above a whisper as she told me: "I thought I 
should die, while we were away, at Scheveningen ! 
Oh! Lisi, — I did not want to die!" 

After that, she seemed to rally a little, and each 
day I paid her a visit, sitting beside her whilst 
with those skilful fingers of hers — fingers that 
always seemed with a touch to accomplish marvels — 
she executed a host of charming things, little card- 
board objects that were as pretty in their way as 
the beautiful ivory carvings that had formerly been 
her delight, but for which her strength no longer 
sufficed. Feeble as they were, those slender diaph- 
anous fingers had lost nothing of their dexterity, 
and her inventive faculty was still fertile as of yore. 
Never was there a daintier toy than the miniature 
fortress she cut out in cardboard, — a feudal castle, 
complete in every detail. But my heart grew heav- 
ier with each visit, for the apparent improvement 
in her health was but illusive, — the flicker of a dying 
candle ere it be extinguished. 

When the last parting came, she was just seven- 
teen, and so sweet and pure, she looked fit for 
Heaven indeed, as she waited patiently for the sum- 
mons. Her eyes grew brighter every day, her nos- 

246 



MARIE 



trils, transparent as alabaster, dilated and quivered 
with every breath she drew, and the smile of un- 
earthly sweetness on her lips was like a perpetual 
leave-taking. Earlier in that very year, my poor 
brother 's sufferings had at last ended, and now, with 
the knowledge that my father's days were numbered 
also, I must lose my one, my best-beloved friend ! 

Could I but have been with her to the last ! But 
it has so often been my lot to be condemned by 
circumstances to go from the side of those whom 
I loved best on earth, with the full consciousness 
that I should see them here no more. Then for the 
first time that bitter experience was mine. My 
father was ordered to a milder climate for his health, 
so in October we all set out for Baden-Baden, to pass 
the winter there. Once more, before we parted, 
Marie and I resolved to be photographed together. 
I held her fast by the hand, as if by so doing I could 
hold her back, for the whole time while the photo- 
graph was being taken, my eyes were fixed on her, 
and saw the ominous quivering of the nostrils, that 
betokened how great the effort. Quite exhausted by 
it, she lay down again, and I sat by her side for a 
while, until my mother fetched me. We said good- 
bye ; and then — 4 'You will turn round, will you not," 
she said, "my Lisi, at the door, and look back at 
me once more!" And I did turn round, and look 
back at her smiling, though my heart was like to 
break, and once outside, I had to lean against the 
wall to steady myself, so shaken was I by choking 
sobs. And there stood her poor mother, and looked 
at me, with tearless eyes. Such silent misery I have 

247 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



never seen in any other countenance. This was the 
fourth of her children whom Frau von Bibra must 
see pass away, and since the death of Max she had 
been an invalid herself. She might have been an- 
other Niobe, white as marble, with all the life and 
light spent in her big dark eyes, of a velvety soft- 
ness, like rich brown pansies. Both parents were 
heroic, but whilst the unhappy mother bore each 
fresh blow in perfect silence, the father's resignation 
even took the form of outer cheerfulness, that did 
not fail him now, when Marie, his darling, was being 
torn from him. "Death," Herr von Bibra was 
accustomed to say, i 1 should be a dear friend to me ; 
he has been such a frequent visitor in my house ! ' ' 

All through that winter I wrote each day to my 
dear Marie. Then towards the end of February 
came worse news, that she was suffering from fright- 
ful headaches, ending in delirium. This lasted a 
whole fortnight, during which she was always fancy- 
ing she saw me, and calling me by name. "Ah! she 
was there, my Lisi!" she would cry; "if we could 
but die, all of us, together, and fly up to heaven 
where the others are waiting for us!" And the 
gates of Paradise seemed to be already open to her, 
for she told of all the wonders she saw, its un- 
dimmed glories, and the flowers that never fade — 
and these raptures were reflected in her face. The 
last thing I sent her was a little night-lamp in 
biscuit-china, like a tiny chapel, so delicate and 
fragile. And one night Baron Bibra wrote me these 
words: — "The little lamp, whose soft light seems to 
plunge our souls in an atmosphere of prayer and 
holiness, sheds its gentle rays over my child's pale 

248 



MARIE 



still face, as if whispering to her the loving thoughts 
of her who sent it!" The tears rise once more to 
my eyes, as I write this. As if the five-and-forty 
years that have passed since that day counted for 
nothing ! It was a heartbreaking meeting with the 
poor father, when shortly after this he came to see 
us in Baden; and terrible again was the return to 
Neuwied, to find their house desolate, and the poor 
bereaved mother, more Niobe-like than ever, and 
her big velvety eyes still strained and tearless! 
Meantime — hardest ordeal of all I went through — 
during that winter of anxiety and anguish I had 
been obliged to go to my first ball, in order that my 
father should for once see me dance. It was with 
endless care and precautions that the short journey 
to Karlsruhe was undertaken, and once there, every- 
thing that friendship could do for him was done, by 
those truest and best of friends, the Grand Duke 
and Grand Duchess of Baden. Notwithstanding all 
their care, he of course coughed for the rest of the 
night — but — he had had his wish — he had seen his 
daughter at her first ball ! And my feet felt like lead 
— were as heavy as my heart, which ached so that I 
knew not how to smile and look well pleased, and 
enter fittingly into the amiable small-talk of my 
partners. How unhappy I was, and how the old 
unhappiness comes over me once more, as I write 
this! For grief and joy are both eternal, but grief 
so much more violent in its nature, that did we but 
rightly consider it, our one aim should be, to bring 
some joy into each other's lives, to sweeten the bit- 
terness that must needs be the portion of all. 

It was the very violence of my grief that helped 

249 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



me through the next few months, for I plunged 
headlong into work — there was no other way for me 
— studying, practising — seven hours in the day 
sometimes — till I was tired out — anything so as not 
to have to think! But now I can look back with 
gratitude on the sympathy shown me by so many 
friends, and remember the kind and feeling words of 
Monsieur de Bacourt, Talleyrand's former secre- 
tary, when he learnt the death of the friend and 
companion of my youth : — ' - C 'est bien dur de ne plus 
pouvoir dire — te rappelles-tu?" 

Next year, death was again busy in our midst. 
This time it was my father who was called away. 
And now at last Baron Bibra's fortitude gave way. 
He who had seen with almost stoical endurance his 
children go before him to the tomb, broke down com- 
pletely after taking his last farewell of the friend 
of a lifetime. To that long unbroken friendship, a 
striking testimony was furnished in recent years by 
the simple perusal of all the documents signed by 
both during Bibra's tenure of office in my father's 
lifetime. From studying the contents of these dry 
deeds, my brother's steward, Baron von der Becke, 
had been able to gather an intimate knowledge of 
his predecessor's character, as also of my father's, 
and of their mutual affection and regard for one 
another. I marvelled indeed when he imparted to 
me the result of his researches, and some of the 
conclusions he had drawn, so correct were they in 
many minutest particulars. I learnt from this, the 
truth that even archives may contain, with their 
record of dull dry facts, and of the poetry that may 
sometimes lurk in a stiffly worded deed ! 

250 



CHAPTER XVII 



MY BROTHER OTTO 

In telling the story of my brother's short life, I 
cannot do better than employ in the first place the 
simple words of his faithful attendant, Mary Barnes, 
who for seven years watched over him devotedly 
night and day, by her untiring care doing much to 
alleviate the pain he suffered from his birth. Her 
notes begin thus: — 

"Friday, 22nd November, 1850, the anxiously ex- 
pected treasure entered this valley of sorrow. The 
event can be forgotten by none who were present on 
that day. For some time past but small hopes had 
been entertained of the child coming into the world 
alive, and we therefore rejoiced the more, when after 
many hours of pain and danger, a fine boy was born. 
New life, new hope sprang up; but the joy was of 
short duration, to be transformed only too soon into 
lasting sorrow. Very shortly after his birth, the 
poor infant's laboured breathing showed that all 
was not well with him, and this led to the discovery 
of a serious organic defect. At first the doctors be- 
lieved that this could be remedied by a slight opera- 
tion, and an eminent surgeon was sent for. Unfor- 
tunately he arrived too late to operate that day, and 
the night that followed was a terrible one. I did not 
think it possible for the poor babe to last till morn- 
ing; it was blue in the face, as I held it, all night 
long, upright in my arms, to prevent it being suffo- 

351 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



cated. At last morning came, and after due ex- 
amination, the operation was fixed for eleven o'clock. 
We moistened the poor child's lips with a few drops 
of milk, as it had not sufficient strength to take the 
breast. The malformation was more serious, and 
the operation in consequence attended with far 
greater difficulty, than the doctors had foreseen. 
It lasted so long, and left the tiny patient so ex- 
hausted, we hardly thought he would survive it many 
seconds. His whole appearance was changed; the 
skin had taken a dull yellowish hue, and the little 
limbs were so cold, we resorted to every possible 
means of restoring a little warmth. This state of 
utter exhaustion lasted for twenty-four hours, dur- 
ing which we kept moistening the lips with milk 
and with a few drops of a resuscitating medicine, it 
being the opinion of the doctors that could we but 
succeed in prolonging life for a few hours, all might 
be well in the end. 

When at last the feeble flame of life seemed to 
burn a little more steadily, I was indeed shocked to 
see, in performing the little sufferer's toilet, the 
awful change wrought in his poor little tortured 
body. He seemed to have dwindled away, to have 
grown so small, so fragile, that one feared that the 
lightest touch must hurt him. He did succeed in 
getting a little sleep, but his sufferings were inde- 
scribable, and caused him, when awake, to scream 
incessantly night and day, till the little voice, worn 
out, became weak and hoarse, and the cry ended in 
a feeble moan, whilst the baby face twitched with 
pain. Early on the morning of the tenth day he 

252 




Prince Otto zu Wied 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



seemed so near death, that the ceremony of chris- 
tening was gone throngh in haste. The name of 
Otto Nicholas was given him. All day long we 
thought every breath must be his last ; and yet again 
he rallied, and was able after a few days to be 
nursed, which was the greatest comfort, as it often 
soothed him to sleep. 

But when the pain was too violent, nothing was 
of the slightest avail, and the fits of screaming it 
occasioned had other ill results. And so the days 
passed ; in alternations of more or less violent pain, 
for he was seldom altogether free from it; and this 
of course retarded his growth and prevented him 
from gaining strength. He remained very, very 
small, with a sweet little pale face, and big blue eyes, 
full of expression. In the spring I was able to 
take him out, and hoped that might strengthen him. 
By the beginning of May we moved to Bonn, for him 
to be under the observation of the surgeon who had 
performed the operation; and there his condition 
became so far satisfactory, that he seemed to begin 
at last to grow and develop in a normal manner. 
The terrible fits of pain still continued, for although 
everything that could be was done to alleviate them, 
they were of a nature that rendered all human suc- 
cour unavailing. When out of pain, he lay perfectly 
still; one never heard him laugh or coo like other 
babies. And, although he began to lift himself up 
and take notice of things, his growth was very slow, 
and the cutting of each tooth almost cost him his 
life. When he had to be weaned, there were fresh 
dangers, and a journey to England, undertaken to 

253 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



give him the benefit of the sea air, very nearly 
proved fatal. In London a celebrated physician 
was consulted, whose opinion absolutely coincided 
with that of the doctor in Bonn, both affirming that 
the child could never live to grow up, human skill 
being powerless to aid in such a case. The asses' 
milk, however, prescribed by the London doctor, 
proved very beneficial, and for some time this with 
arrowroot formed his diet. He remained a very 
small baby, and only took his first few steps on his 
second birthday, having also made no attempt at all 
to speak up to that time. But he was a dear sweet 
child, with eyes that looked at one so pitifully, it 
was as if they were imploring help. There was 
something in him quite different to all other chil- 
dren. It must have been the fearful attacks of pain, 
in which several hours of each night and day were 
passed, that gave him this heavenly expression. In 
the summer of 1853, we went to Paris; and again 
the poor little thing was at death's door in a teeth- 
ing crisis. He was not yet three years old, but the 
delirium was hardly over, when he insisted, as he 
lay exhausted on his bed, that all the servants should 
come in to see him for a moment, and it was touch- 
ing to see him stretch out his tiny little thin hand to 
each in turn, telling them how ill he had been, but 
that he was getting better ! It took some time after 
this for him to recover his strength sufficiently to be 
able to walk again. ' ' 

I have followed thus far the narrative of our 
good Barnes, giving in her own simple language an 
account of the first three years of the life over which 

254 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



she watched so faithfully. It was at about the time 
when these notes stop, that the letter of a friend 
staying with ns in Paris, describes the poor child 
in these words : — "Little Otto seems to grow smaller 
and smaller, and he is always suffering. You can- 
not think what a dear child it is, — much too good for 
this world!" And a little later she wrote: — "Otto 
is marvellously precocious, his mental development 
is quite extraordinary, he is altogether an ethereal 
little being !" On his third birthday we had sent out 
a little table with all his presents, and stood round it, 
eager to witness the expression of his delight. But 
he could only say — "Is all that for me!" as he 
looked at each thing in turn with big wondering eyes, 
and it was only a month later, that, looking out from 
the window at the children walking and running hap- 
pily in the Champs Elysees, he asked: — "And have 
those little children really no pain?" And when 
he heard that they had not : — ' ' Oh ! how glad lam!" 
he exclaimed. 

When he was four years old, a little white rabbit 
was given him, which became his greatest pet, his 
constant companion, following his little master about 
everywhere like a dog, and licking his face and 
hands. The only time I ever saw Otto give way to 
a real fit of despair, was on one occasion when he 
believed that his dear Bunny had burnt itself. The 
poor little fellow flung himself on the ground, with 
piercing screams, tearing at his hair, and his heart 
still went on thumping like a hammer, long after 
he had convinced himself that his beloved playfellow 

255 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



had really met with no harm. The faithful little 
creature outlived its master just a year. 

Quite early the poor boy had begun to practise 
most marvellous self-control. After a sleepless 
night, he would walk up and down in his room, with 
his little fists clenched, saying from time to time — 
"now I am ready — now I can go in!" — until he felt 
that he was sufficiently prepared to appear among 
the rest of us at the breakfast-table, where he would 
take his place, pale as death, but apparently quite 
calm. When he was five years old, he began learn- 
ing to read, and also to join Wilhelm and myself in 
reciting poetry, as was our custom every Sunday. 
In this he soon gave evidence of quite exceptional 
talent ; from simple rhymes and fables in verse pas- 
sing on quickly to the ballads of Schiller and Burger, 
and these he declaimed with so much spirit and such 
a rare sense of humour, that it was a treat to see and 
hear him. 

In a friend's letter of April, 1855, I find the fol- 
lowing passage: — "Otto is really touching; all day 
yesterday, after the doctor had gone, he kept repeat- 
ing — 'the good doctor says that if I ate no bread, I 
should have less pain ; how kind of him, to think of 
what would be good for me!' — This is what he 
finds to say, instead of a word of complaint at being 
deprived of the food he likes best." 

He very soon began to take the greatest pleasure 
in his lessons — history and botany above all. His 
tiny fingers were very skilful in arranging and 
pasting in an album the specimens of plants he 
collected. In this as in everything else his keen 

2,56 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



sense of order was shown; everything belonging to 
him had its right place, and was kept in perfect 
order. He was very fond of flowers, and they flour- 
ished under his care; the fuchsias that stood in his 
window were literally covered with blossoms. He 
began Greek when he was seven years old, and Latin 
the next year. Greek, however, always remained 
his favourite study, and he loved to recite verses 
in that language. One day a lady asked him to let 
her hear him say a Greek fable. "Why!" he asked 
rather drily. "You would not understand it if I 
did!" "That is quite true, but I like to hear the 
sound.' 9 "Ah! that is another matter V 9 and he 
began reciting without more ado. 

In the autumn of the year 1858, we went for a 
little tour in Switzerland and Northern Italy. Otto 's 
delight at all the wonders he saw was unbounded, 
and his manner of expressing it caused general 
amazement. 6 ' That cannot be a child ! ' 9 people said, 
when they heard him reciting verses of the "Diver" 
by the Falls of the Ehine, and again quoting appro- 
priate lines of Goethe and Burger in the valley of 
the Ehine, at that moment still ravaged by recent 
floods. Everywhere guides and cicerones turned to 
him with their chief explanations, his eager ques- 
tions and intelligent little face with the big bright 
eyes showing the deep interest he felt. In Milan 
his enthusiasm was aroused by the life of S. Charles 
Borromeo. Noticing this, the priest who was guid- 
ing us round the cathedral, and who could speak 
a little English, took Otto by the hand, and addressed 
all his remarks to him. Such examples of human 
17 257 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



grandeur always excited his passionate admiration, 
and it was his constant dream, one day to leave his 
mark in the world. 

On our return to Germany that same year, we 
spent a month at Freiburg, and it is from here that 
are dated some of my brother's most characteristic 
letters, to a little friend of his own age — simple, 
childlike letters, by no means free from mistakes, but 
showing a most remarkable depth of thought and 
precocious intelligence on the part of a child who 
had not yet quite accomplished his eighth year. 

The next year, up to the autumn of 1859, was the 
very best and happiest of his short life, and during 
the summer we soon began to hope once more that 
he might after all perhaps get well. He was much 
out of doors, able to work in his own little garden, 
and the healthy exercise, the life in the open air 
gave him for the moment quite a blooming appear- 
ance that might well delude us with false hopes. 
None who saw him trot about, with his gardening 
tools flung across his shoulder, his little face flushed 
and glowing, beneath the straw hat perched jauntily 
on his fair curls, — no one who saw him thus could 
have guessed what his sufferings had hitherto been, 
nor have suspected how soon he was again to be their 
victim. For that short period his appetite im- 
proved, and he seemed able to satisfy it without 
becoming a prey to the agonising pains with which 
the digestive process had for so long been almost 
invariably accompanied. During the harvesting he 
was in his glory; sometimes out in the fields for 
hours, taking an active part in the proceedings, and 

258 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



so lively, and joyous, and full of fun, it did everyone 
good to see him. 

Thus the summer went by, but all at once in Oc- 
tober Otto was seized with an attack of pain, even 
more violent and spasmodic than any of the pre- 
ceding ones, and this being repeated and becoming 
of very frequent recurrence, a great specialist was 
consulted, who declared that an operation was neces- 
sary. This, although attended with considerable 
danger, was successfully performed in March, 1860, 
the long and painful examinations that preceded it, 
and that were not always carried out under anaes- 
thetics, having been most heroically borne. But the 
results were not such as had been anticipated. 
Hardly had the little patient left his bed, before the 
attacks of pain began again with redoubled violence, 
to the consternation of the doctors, who felt their 
skill completely baffled by this unexpected occur- 
rence. 

The sympathy shown by the good townspeople at 
the time of the operation was most touching. Some- 
times there was quite a little throng gathered all 
day in front of the iron railings before the Castle, 
to hear the latest tidings. 

I have told of the deep interest the dear boy took 
in my confirmation, which took place that same sum- 
mer. In the little volume of the ' ' Imitation, ' ' which 
he gave me on that day, I asked him to write a few 
words, and without a moment's pause, he took his 
pen, and wrote in his firm clear characters: — 
" Though I speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sound- 

259 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



ing brass, or a tinkling cymbal. ' 9 — Otto. The gospel 
of Love bad passed into bis flesh and blood, had 
become part of bis inmost being. 

Directly it was possible, his lessons had begun 
again, for that was indeed the best, the only means 
of abstracting his thoughts, diverting them entirely 
from his own condition. The letters that I have 
from him, during a few weeks' absence from home 
about this time, point to the extraordinary self-com- 
mand he had attained, whilst they also display most 
remarkable and varied intellectual interests. In 
some he tells me of his botanical studies and the 
experiments in horticulture that already so deeply 
interested him, in others, he spoke of the lectures on 
Art and Literature, which it had been arranged for 
different professors to give for his benefit. But 
Nature and her works he loved best of all, and I 
treasure the tiny little album he gave me about this 
time, in which specimens of various mosses were 
most beautifully arranged, together with a charming 
little essay, "My Love for the Leaves,' ' a complete 
dissertation on all his favourite plants and trees, 
carefully enumerated, and their foliage described in 
every detail. 

But his sufferings grew worse, the attacks of pain 
succeeding one another more frequently, and on 
Ascension Day of that same year every faint hope 
of his ultimate recovery was taken from us. The 
surgeon, by whom the last operation had been per- 
formed, discovered, on examining him again, in 
addition to the original organic trouble, the existence 
of a very large internal tumour, and pronounced that 

260 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



in his opinion Otto could not possibly last another 
year. At the same time, my father's lungs were 
subjected to thorough examination, with the alarm- 
ing result that in his case also the doctor declared 
no hope of recovery to exist, and that he could 
hardly be expected to live more than two years 
longer. Oh! that terrible Ascension Day! what a 
blight was cast over all our hearts ! And the fear- 
ful attacks of pain went on, increasing in duration 
and in intensity, and giving the poor child an oppor- 
tunity of displaying almost superhuman courage and 
endurance, above all in his constant and heroic 
efforts to hide some part of his sufferings from his 
beloved mother, whose anguish was indeed almost 
unendurable. But between the paroxysms, ever the 
same sweet serenity, even cheerfulness, and an im- 
mediate resumption of the study or occupation in- 
terrupted just before. His activity and energy were 
unbounded; he was always at work, either carving, 
pasting or cutting out ; his hands were never at rest. 

That summer brought one great joy to the poor 
little invalid, the return of his idolised elder brother, 
whose course of study had caused him to absent him- 
self from home for some years, and who had mean- 
while developed from a mere schoolboy into a tall 
youth. Otto 's excitement was so great, that for the 
time being he felt no pain. Once more his laughter 
resounded through the house, and even out into the 
woods, where we lingered till quite late in those long, 
lovely summer days. Once more it was quite a gay, 
lively, youthful party that collected round the tea- 
table, and our merriment was so infectious that our 

261 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



elders would often pause in their serious conver- 
sation to listen to the nonsense we talked, and join 
in our peals of laughter. An exhibition of cele- 
brated pictures had just been opened in Cologne, 
and we all went over there one day to see them. 
The cartoons by Cornelius attracted Otto's attention 
more than all the rest, and he stood for a long time 
contemplating the one, concerning whose subject the 
rest of our party — although there were several 
scholars and artists with us — could not be agreed. 
To their astonishment, when the boy at last took his 
eyes off the picture, he said very quietly — "I know 
what it is ! ' ' and proceeded to describe in every de- 
tail the scene from the Odyssey, which it did indeed 
depict. 

So long as his brother was in the house, Otto 
would not stir from his side. His admiration for 
the big elder brother, for his health and strength, 
was most touching, and it was refreshing to hear 
his generous outburst of indignation at any remark 
he considered in the slightest degree disparaging 
to his idol. Were there but the faintest hint of criti- 
cism, he would blaze up: "Wilhelm has beautiful 
eyes and splendid teeth, and is very, very clever !" 
In the warmth and sincerity of his heart, he could 
understand no grudging affection, no measured 
qualified praise. And this warm-heartedness was 
probably his greatest source of happiness, providing 
him with more glad hours than might well have been 
deemed possible in an existence so fraught with 
pain. 

Very great pleasure he derived from the little 

262 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



farmhouse, built in the style of a Swiss chalet, which 
my mother had originally planned as a present to 
him, on his coming of age. We had passed many 
happy hours there, but in the autumn of 1861, he 
was no longer able to ride or go thither on foot, 
and soon even the movement of the little donkey- 
carriage, in which for a time he drove there daily, 
also became unbearable, and one evening we had to 
pull up in the middle of the wood and wait till a litter 
was brought on which to carry him home. It was a 
pitiable sight; the little motionless body, worn out 
with suffering, stretched on the litter and borne 
along by grave silent men, while the flickering moon- 
beams darting through the branches shed an un- 
earthly light over the small white face, and overhead 
night-hawks and screech-owls, circling round the sad 
little procession, filled the air with their jarring 
cries. 

From the following October he could not walk 
at all, and was carried about everywhere in a little 
arm-chair, which was fastened on a litter. In this 
manner he was brought to table or taken out into 
the woods, where he would lie for hours, resting on 
his right side, with the dead leaves falling thickly 
round him. After this he was never again able to lie 
either on his back or on the left side. The course 
of his illness after this I find described in my letters 
to my absent brother Wilhelm, a few extracts from 
which I give here. . . . "Otto suffered fright- 
fully yesterday all day long, and was almost beside 
himself at the slightest movement in the room. 
. . . Sleep can only be obtained by means of 

263 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 

laudanum. . . . He seems to grow more and 
more loving towards us all ; I have never seen such 
depth of feeling in another ; there is a strange depth 
in the big serious eyes, that appear to be untouched 
by the sufferings of the frail body. The other day, 
as I sat beside him in the wood, he said many such 
touching things, winding up with accusing himself 
of cowardice, in taking laudanum to procure relief 
from pain. I could only comfort him by reminding 
him that it was not of his own free will he took it, 
but to please others. . . . For the last two days 
Otto has stayed in bed altogether. . . . The 
agony he has suffered is indescribable; it wrings 
one 's heart to witness it. . . . Mamma has been 
letting him know the truth about his condition, 
thinking that it must comfort him to know that his 
suffering will soon be over. But at first he wept at 
the thought of parting with her, saying that he could 
not bear it. Then he grew calmer and discussed the 
matter quite quietly. He told mamma yesterday 
that he wished to be buried in Monrepos, under the 
old trees, with a white cross at the head of his grave, 
and quantities of flowers planted on it. Then he 
went on to ask, if in the life beyond he should see 
all the great men of antiquity, and Socrates above 
all — and also if he should still see mamma — sitting 
in her chair, just as she was then! — "I hope so, my 
child !" she told him. . . . Papa is a little bet- 
ter. He came down yesterday for the first time for 
three weeks. The meeting was a touching one; 
papa himself, worn to a shadow, looking down so 
anxiously on the poor little pale face, that was gaz- 

264 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



ing with rapture up iu his. . . . Otto suffers 
more and more. He begins to have hallucinations, 
sees himself surrounded by hideous faces that 
threaten him. . . . He seems to have reached a 
degree of pain, beyond which it is impossible to go. 
His sufferings are indescribable. A little time ago, 
he said he had to pray each day that he might wel- 
come death, for the thought of the parting was still 
too terrible to him; but now he begins to comfort 
himself with the thought that there is no real separa- 
tion, and to rejoice that he may at last rest and be 
free from pain. And he has been giving all his in- 
structions, telling us his wishes, and always coming 
back to the provision to be made for his own two 
special attendants. . . . Each new day is worse 
than the last. . . . Once he cried out : — "I can- 
not bear it!" but when mamma said: — "Yes, 
we will bear it together ! ' ' he grew quieter and mur- 
mured — "Father, Thy will be done!" . . . 
Although the doses of laudanum are constantly be- 
ing increased, he sleeps very little, the pain is too 
agonising. ... Of mamma I say nothing. What 
she suffers, she keeps to herself ; she says sometimes 
she feels as if a saw were at her heart, being slowly 
drawn backwards and forwards." 

Otto had always taken special pleasure in follow- 
ing the mental development of the lives he read 
about. He found satisfaction in the thought that 
the activity of the spirit can neither be blighted nor 
repressed. Every fact or occurrence that seemed 
to bear on this theory interested him; the story of 
Kasper Hauser was a case in point, and delighted 

265 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



him greatly, whilst the inactive life of the poor 
young Duke of Eeichstadt was simply incomprehen- 
sible to him — "To live to be twenty-two, — and have 
done nothing !" he would exclaim, almost im- 
patiently. 

There seemed at one moment to be danger of his 
being too severe in his judgment of others, but 
directly my mother pointed this out to him, he saw 
his mistake and took pains to avoid it. 

To the last his spirit remained active, and in the 
intervals of pain he was always busily employed. 
Close beside his pillow, near the little Testament that 
never left him, lay a case of the different instru- 
ments he used for painting and carving, and with 
them he fabricated all sorts of pretty things for us 
all. His strong sense of the beautiful, of grace and 
harmony, never deserted him, neither did the 
humour with which he had so often enlivened us. 
After the fiercest attack of pain, whilst all around 
him were still overcome by witnessing his struggles, 
he would suddenly make some witty remark, and 
would not rest content till he had brought us all to 
join in his laughter. 

But the pain grew worse and worse, and he was 
so weakened by it, that on his eleventh birthday 
we dared to hope, that before the day was over, he 
would be keeping it in Paradise. "We had brought 
him flowers, and some of them we strewed over his 
bed, and wreathed around his pillow, and it might 
have been in his last slumber that he was lying 
there, so silent and still, and the sheets no whiter 
than his wan white face. But that mercy was not 

266 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



yet granted hirn; there was still much more suffer- 
ing in store. A month later came my eighteenth 
birthday, and directly I came to see him in the 
morning, he pulled out from under his pillow a tiny 
marble slab, on which notwithstanding the awkward 
position in which he lay, he had contrived to paint in 
water-colours the words : ' ' God is love. ' ' When he 
gave it me, we could only throw our arms round one 
another and cry together. The night before he had 
made the remark, that whatever presents he now 
gave must be of a lasting nature. 

For on account of the last few dreadful weeks, 
during which his illness made rapid strides, I turn 
to letters written by me at the time, and copy a 
few pages. 

"December, 1861. — Our preparations of Christ- 
mas are being made with more than usual care, so 
that the festival may be kept with all due solemnity, — 
for the last time, as we well know, that we shall all 
celebrate it together on earth. . . . Papa is very 
weak, and the fits of coughing are almost intermit- 
tent. With him, as with Otto, it is only a question 
of time. . . . Christmas Eve was very solemn 
and peaceful and beautiful : the few days preceding 
it had been exceptionally good and free from pain, 
so that Otto could be wheeled into the room where 
the Christmas-trees stood ready, and it was touching 
to see his little face, beaming with happiness, when 
the trees were lighted up, and the Christmas hymn 
sung as usual, by the whole household, led by me 
from my accustomed place at the organ. . . . 
But since then he has had two very disturbed nights, 

267 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



and the dreadful attacks of pain have begun again. 
. . . i Keep calm!' he called to mamma, after 
one of these, — 'it is only the body that suffers, 
nothing of this can hurt the soul!' 

"January, 1862. — Yesterday he thought he was 
dying, and took leave of us all, but when he saw 
mamma ? s tears, he again found strength to comfort 
her. The night that followed was a dreadful one; 
the sensation of suffocation so intense that, ex- 
hausted as he was, he sometimes stood upright in bed 
in the effort to breathe. . . . And through it 
all his patience and resignation are inexhaustible, 
and his affection for mamma and each one of us 
seems only to grow stronger. . . . The fits of 
pain are now so frequent, even mamma no longer 
keeps count of them. Last night she had to give 
him twenty-one drops of laudanum. . . . We 
pray that the end may be near. To-day his eyes are 
quite dim, and he can only bear that we speak in 
whispers. . . . But his first thought is still for 
mamma, and he says she is much more to be pitied 
than he. . . . It was her birthday yesterday, 
and Otto was in a great state of excitement. He 
gave her a flower-stand and a little casket, which he 
had himself designed. One could see the efforts he 
made to appear cheerful, whilst hardly for one mo- 
ment free from pain. (He gave orders at the time 
for another present, for a surprise to his mother on 
her next birthday. She received it eleven months 
after his death!) . . . 

"February. — His strength seems to be ebbing. 
. . . His one prayer is that he may die in full 

268 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



consciousness. Another respite. . . . Then a 
new and worse pain. The poor child is being slowly 
tortured to death. . . . Sometimes, in his agony, 
cries of despair are forced from him, and then again 
he can talk with the utmost composure of the blessed- 
ness awaiting him when the last struggle is over. 
. . . We had a visit from Professor Perthes, who 
sat for some hours in Otto's room, talking to him 
and Uncle Xicholas. The Professor was so much 
struck by the invalid's keen interest in the subject 
being discussed, and his clear-headed practical sug- 
gestions, that he exclaimed on coming away from 
him : — ' 4 That boy is not going to die yet ; — he thinks 
and feels like a grown-up man ! ' ' But a little later, 
after witnessing one of the cruel paroxysms of 
pain, our friend also was convinced that this ma- 
tured intelligence he had just been admiring, only 
betokened that the soul, purified and ennobled by 
suffering, was already ripe for a better world. 
. . . The weakness increased. All day yesterday 
and all night long, he lay with his hands clasped in 
prayer, murmuring feebly: — "When will the hour 
of release come? when will the Angel of Peace ap- 
pear, to bear me away ?" His piety and resignation 
never fail him for one moment. . . . His hands 
are cold as ice, his brow like marble, his eyes sunken, 
but still bright with intelligence. . . . One even- 
ing he complained that he could no longer rightly 
distinguish our faces. Over his poor little wasted 
face the shadow of death is already creeping, but he 
is strangely beautiful with it. . . . Yesterday, 
Monday, as we sat as usual round him, he slowly 

269 



FROM MEMORY'S SHRINE 



stretched out his poor feeble arms, exclaiming joy- 
fully: — "Well, then, if this is to be the end, fare- 
well to you all!" And his expression was raptur- 
ous, as he bade us each good-night, and prayed for 
blessings on us. . . . But even then it was not 
over . . . 

The agony lasted two days longer. He seemed to 
sleep, but woke from time to time with a cry of 
anguish. He could no longer speak, though he still 
saw and heard everything, and gave signs that he 
understood. Then, at the very last, after a few 
broken accents, came the rattle in his throat, and the 
one word "Help!" loud and clear. And then a 
deathly silence. And mamma bent over him and 
murmured — "Thanks be to God! His name be 
praised for evermore!" 

The struggle was over. Peace and heavenly calm 
spread themselves over the tired features, and a 
sweet smile played about his lips — the deep line 
across the high forehead alone showing how dearly 
this peace had been purchased. 

Our dear Otto looked like an angel sleeping there ; 
we could scarce tear ourselves away from him. My 
mother kept saying — "How quietly he rests!" and 
if anyone sobbed on coming into the room — "Hush! 
hush!" she said, "do not disturb my child!" With 
our own hands we placed him in his last little bed, 
and covered him over. The old clergyman from 
Biebrich, by whom the benediction had been spoken 
at my parents' marriage, now pronounced the last 
blessing over their beloved child. 

270 



MY BROTHER OTTO 



Otto's best epitaph is contained in a letter from 
my father to an intimate friend, which concluded 
thus: " . . . On a little rising-ground not far 
from Monrepos, he sleeps his last sleep in the shade 
of the old linden trees. But he lives on forever in 
our memory, and this living remembrance, this com- 
munion with the dead, is our last best heritage, by 
which in the midst of the heavy loss, we are yet 
made rich sempiternally. ' ' 



021 649 069 1 



